Mumbai, Oct. 23: A BPO trainer was arrested today on the charge of murdering a woman colleague who was stabbed to death near a railway station in Navi Mumbai on October 16 night.

Jacob Simon Pinto, 32, a married man, had seen his advances snubbed by assistant human resources manager Anandita Mishra, 33, police said.

Mishra lived with her 60-year-old mother and four-year-old daughter, a special child, in Navi Mumbai after separating from her husband, deputy commissioner of police R.D. Shinde said.

She was returning home from work when she was stabbed with a knife opposite the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City near Koparkhairne station. She was taken to a local hospital where she died before admission.

“Pinto and Mishra joined the Reliance BPO around the same time in 2005 but Mishra rose faster than him. They had developed some closeness,” Shinde said.

“Pinto, who is married and childless, was in love with her but she had snubbed his advances. Frustrated, Pinto stabbed her.”

Pinto, who is from Sangli in western Maharashtra, lived in the Kamothe suburb of Navi Mumbai and had got married in 2006. He had joined the BPO as a customer service executive before being promoted to trainer.

Mishra was promoted twice, to team leader and then to assistant manager, human resource. “Mishra mixed with everyone in the office. Pinto began harbouring notions of a romantic liaison but she had no such feelings towards him. Two months ago, he began making threat calls to her. She had separated from her husband five years ago,” Shinde said.

Reliance spokesperson Gaurav Wahi said Mishra had lodged a harassment complaint with the company when Pinto visited her house in the last week of September at 3am.

“According to company rules, he was asked to proceed on leave. He was not in the office on the day of the incident. She was promoted as assistant manager, HR, barely 15 days before her killing,” Wahi said.

He added that office staff had pooled in money for a corpus to provide for the financial needs of Mishra’s mother, Poornima Goswami, and four-year-old Ahana, who needs regular medical attention.

Shinde said Pinto had fled to his village in Sangli after the murder and kept dodging the police. He had apparently planned to travel to a church in Chennai and then to Solapur. The police set traps in both places but failed to catch him.

Pinto was arrested after he returned to Navi Mumbai yesterday.