Woman, 34, found dead in locked Gahunje flat while family thought she was in London

A 34-year-old woman, Mugdha Deshmukh, was found dead inside a locked flat in the Lodha Belmondo housing society at Gahunje in Pune. Her body was badly decomposed. Her family had believed all along that she was living in London.

The discovery was made on the night of Wednesday, October 28. Mugdha was the daughter of Avinash Deshmukh, a retired chief engineer of the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation, who lives in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

The search began after the family lost contact with her. Her father lodged a missing person complaint at the Osmanpura police station in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. Officers there went through her bank account and found payments to the delivery apps Swiggy, Zomato and Blinkit. Those transactions pointed them to the Lodha Belmondo address.

On Wednesday night, a team of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar police and Pimpri Chinchwad police reached the flat. The door was bolted from inside and a strong stench came from the flat. The police broke the door open and found Mugdha's body in the bedroom.

An accidental death case has been registered at the Shirgaon police station in Pimpri Chinchwad. The police say they are keeping every possibility open, including suicide and foul play.

According to the complaint, Mugdha went to London in July 2025 to do an MBA, a decision she took after her husband died. Her family says she lived there on her own, held a part-time job and stayed in regular touch with her parents through video calls and messages.

Her last conversation with her mother took place on October 23. She told her mother she was in a hurry because she had to attend a job interview. When her parents tried to call her the next evening, her phone was switched off. They could not reach her after that, and their worry grew until they approached the police.

The inquiry has since thrown up a puzzle. Information from London police and immigration records shows that Mugdha left the United Kingdom at the end of August 2026. That means she had been in India for about two months, even though her family thought she was still abroad. Preliminary findings suggest she had rented the Gahunje flat herself and was staying there without telling anyone.

The police have not yet said how she died. They are trying to establish the exact cause of death, whether anyone else was involved, and why she chose to live in Pune without informing her family. Where she was, and what happened to her, in the weeks before the body was found remains unanswered.