Pune: A 34-year-old woman who had secretly returned to India from London in August was found dead on Thursday, October 29, inside her rented flat at the Lodha Belmondo residential complex in Gahunje, in the Pimpri Chinchwad area of Pune, police said on Friday. The woman, Mugdha Deshmukh, was a native of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and had left for the United Kingdom in July 2025 to pursue an MBA.

Senior Inspector Devendra Chavan of Shirgaon Police Station in Pimpri Chinchwad told PTI that officers reached the flat she was residing in, gained entry with the help of a keymaker, and found her dead inside. He said there were no visible injury marks on the body, and her viscera has been preserved to ascertain the exact cause of death. Police said a postmortem examination has been completed and further investigation is underway.

Family lost contact on October 24, then read the bank statements

According to police, Deshmukh lived alone in London and had taken up part-time jobs, and her family stayed in touch with her over phone calls and messages, believing she was still studying there. Her father, Avinash Deshmukh, stated in a complaint lodged with the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar police earlier this week that the family could not reach her from October 24 and her mobile phone was switched off. A friend in London told the family she had last exchanged messages with Mugdha on October 22, according to reports.

Her father then examined her bank statements and found several transactions between October 8 and 25 on food delivery and other online platforms, including one suspected to have originated from the Osmanpura area of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, which led the family to believe she could be in India. The family also contacted Indian authorities and the Indian High Commission for help. Police examined her food-delivery records, and her order history helped investigators identify the Gahunje flat, after which the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar police alerted their Pimpri Chinchwad counterparts.

Source: PTI via The Times of India (7Globe)

During the probe, police found that Deshmukh had rented the apartment in April 2026 but began living there only after returning from the UK in August, Chavan said, adding that she was reportedly teaching some subjects online to students while staying in Pune. What happens next will turn on the viscera report and the police investigation into the circumstances of her death; no cause has been established so far.