A 34-year-old woman was found dead inside her rented apartment at the Lodha Belmondo residential complex in Gahunje, Pimpri Chinchwad, after food-delivery transactions helped her family trace her return from London, police said. Investigators have found no visible injury marks on her body and are examining the cause and circumstances of her death.
Mugdha Deshmukh, a native of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, had travelled to the United Kingdom in July 2025 to pursue an MBA. Her family believed she was still studying in London, but police said she returned to India in August without informing them and began living alone in a flat in the Pune region.
Her family remained in contact with her through phone calls and messages. Concern grew on October 24 when they were unable to reach her and her mobile phone was switched off. According to a complaint filed by her father, Avinash Deshmukh, the last known communication with Mugdha had taken place through messages on October 22, a friend in London told the family.
The friend approached London police to report her missing and was informed that Mugdha had left the United Kingdom around the end of August, an official said. The family then sought assistance from Indian authorities and the Indian High Commission while examining her bank records to establish her whereabouts.
Those records showed transactions on food-delivery and online-service platforms between October 8 and 25. One transaction was believed to have originated in the Osmanpura area of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, leading the family to suspect that she had returned to India. They subsequently approached the Sambhajinagar crime branch, which traced her location to the residential complex in Gahunje and alerted Pimpri Chinchwad police.
Police reached the apartment and entered with the assistance of a keymaker. “We reached the flat she was residing in, gained entry with the help of a keymaker, and found her dead inside,” senior inspector Devendra Chavan of Shirgaon police told the Times of India. He said there were no visible injury marks on the body.
Police have preserved the woman’s viscera to determine the exact cause of death. Investigators also found that she had rented the apartment in April but began living there only after returning from the UK in August. The circumstances of her return, her period of residence in the flat and the events preceding her death are being examined.
The investigation is being conducted by Pimpri Chinchwad police, with information supplied by the family and the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar police. The final cause of death will depend on forensic and post-mortem findings.
