Woman who went to London for MBA found dead in locked Gahunje flat; food app use led police to her

The decomposed body of a 34-year-old woman was found in a locked flat in Gahunje, near Pimpri-Chinchwad, causing alarm in the area. The deceased has been identified as Mugdha Avinash Deshmukh, a resident of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. The body was found in a flat in the upscale Lodha Belmondo society in Gahunje.

Mugdha was the daughter of Avinash Deshmukh, a retired chief engineer of the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation. She had gone to London in July 2025 to study for an MBA. While there, she spoke to her family every day. But after she last spoke to her mother on October 23, 2026, contact with her broke off suddenly.

When Mugdha's phone could not be reached, the family made inquiries through a friend of hers who lives in London. It emerged, to their shock, that Mugdha had left London at the end of August 2026. She had not told her family anything about it even after returning to India. With no response from the Indian High Commission, her worried parents filed a missing-person complaint at the Osmanpura police station in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

During the investigation, police examined Mugdha's bank account transactions and digital footprint. They found that her credit card was being used in India on online food apps such as Zomato, Blinkit and Swiggy. This established that she was in India and not in London.

Acting on the technical investigation, a police team reached the Lodha Belmondo society in Gahunje. The flat's door was locked from inside, so police opened it with a duplicate key and went in. Mugdha's decomposed body was found in the bedroom.

Devendra Chavan, senior police inspector at Shirgaon police station, said the case was being investigated thoroughly from every angle. According to him, Mugdha had been living alone in the same Gahunje flat since August 2026. On October 21, she had also told the domestic help who worked at the flat to stop coming.

Police said a post-mortem had been conducted and the viscera had been preserved. The actual cause of death will become clear only after the medical report arrives and a forensic examination of her mobile phone.