The incident took place at Nandivali village in Dombivli of the district in the wee hours of Saturday, Dombivli police station in-charge S B Shirvarkar said.
The accused approached the auto driver asking him to ferry them to a certain location which he refused. Enraged over this, they stabbed him to death, he said.
They then dumped his body behind the crematorium. The incident came to light after locals informed the police.
The accused have been identified as Anand Deokar, Srinivas Sugala, Prashant Tale, Vinod Wakte, and Rakesh Ingle. All of them were arrested yesterday.