ratnam-infotech-logoKavita Badala, a twenty-seven year old woman from Mumbai, had not been seen or heard from since May 15th after she left for work.

On Monday May 16th, her father received a ransom call demanding Rs 3,000,000 ($44,494 USD) and 3 kg of gold.

He reported the matter to Arnala police, who tracked down the suspects after they traced the ransom call.

With the cooperation of Badala’s father, Kishanlal Kothari, Arnala police set up a sting meeting between the two parties and apprehended four suspects.

As Mohitkumar Bhagat, Shiv Sharma, Ramavtar Sharma and Unnika Sarvanandan were being questioned, Vangoan police received a report

about a body stuffed in a suitcase and set on fire at Sakra Ghat around 5am the same day.

When pressed by Arnala police, Mohitkumar Baghat confessed they had

set Kavita on fire and her body was dumped in a suitcase near a Dahanu jungle.

A woman has been brutally murdered, four suspects arrested and a father left to grieve the loss of a daughter.

What on Earth happened?

How Kavita Badala (also known as Kavita Kothare) met the four accused is unclear, but wowing them with claims that her father had “loads of cash and valuables” and “higher returns”, she recruited them into Ratnam Infotech.

Ratnam Infotech (“ratnaminfotech.in”), is an MLM company based out of Mumbai, India.

Launched in 2008 and headed up by Marketing Director, Manish Burad, Ratnam Infotech assert they are “Asia’s no. 1 network marketing company in binary concept” (sic).

The company claims to have ‘more than 300,000 distributors across India‘.

Ratnam Infotech affiliates pay between Rs. 4990 to 7490 ($74 to $111 USD) when they join the company.

Products bundled with Ratnam Infotech affiliate membership include a laundry ball, energy saver device, watch, Tungsten bio magnetic bracelet, “gas & life saver”, induction stove, jewelry, CFL invertor, “bio disc” and “G Five” cell phones.

Ratnam Infotech affiliates are paid to recruit new affiliates, with commissions paid out via a binary compensation structure.

The accused purportedly paid Kavita Badala Rs. 17,000 ($252 USD) to join the company.

As they were running out of money and business was not looking up, they asked her to return their money.

When she refused, they planned the abduction.

Lead to believe Badala’s father was swimming in wealth, the suspects made the ransom call in the hope they’d recover their money.

Turns out Badala had been less than truthful about the state of her father’s finances.

Kothari spoke to the kidnapper about his inability to arrange for money.

He told the kidnappers that he was employed with a jeweller and drew a meagre amount as salary.

This didn’t go down well.

Angered by this revelation, they strangled Kavita on May 18, said the police.

Her body was put into a suitcase , taken by car and burnt to wipe out all evidence.

Strangled, stuffed in a suitcase and torched… for what? A few hundred USD?

A case of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy (has been) registered against the accused.

The trio will be produced in court today (Friday, May 20th).

What a tragic story for all concerned. These four idiots are going to jail, the poor father is left to pick up the pieces and his daughter paid the ultimate price.

And why hasn’t any action been taken against Ratnam Infotech? As far as I can tell there’s no retail to speak of, with the business clearly a pyramid scheme.

Come on India, get your act together. This is ridiculous.