In corroborative material evidence that would help nail the accused in the twin murders of sculptor Hema Upadhyay and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani, the crime branch sleuths on Saturday informed a suburban magistrate’s court that they had recovered the ring worn by Hema, slain Bhambani’s car and the tempo used to transport the bodies of the victims.
On a day when a Borivli Metropolitan Magistrate’s court extended the custody three of the four accused in the double murder case --Vijay Rajbhar, Pradeep Rajbhar and Azad Rajbhar till December 22, the investigators told the court that they had recovered the ring worn by Hema (43) at the time of murder and that they had added one more charge – that of robbery – in the FIR registered by the Kandivli police in the case.
In two other major recoveries that sought to establish the chain of events leading to the double murder on December 11, the police recovered slain lawyer Bhambani’s car and tempo used for transporting the bodies of the two deceased from the warehouse of the absconding key accused Vidyadhar Rajbhar to an open drain at Kandivli (west) where the bodies—packed in card board boxes – were dumped.
Both the vehicles were recovered from the Charkop Industrial Estate premises at Kandivli in north Mumbai.
The police have arrested four of the five identified accused –Azad, Pradeep, Vijay and Sadhu Rajbhar, while the key accused Vidyadhar Rajbhar -- who had ordered the killing of Hema and her lawyer Bhambani – is still at large.
The arrested persons have told the police that it was a dispute involving a sum of Rs5 lakh that Hema had with the Rajbhars’ firm that had prompted Vidyadhar to order the killing of the high-profile sculptor-cum-painter and her lawyer Harish.
However, the investigators are in no mood to buy the “Rs 5 lakh dispute” theory put out by the arrested accused. There is another theory that Vidyadhar had reportedly called Hema on a few occasions prior to her murder claiming that he had some evidence against Chintan which he wanted to give it to her for a price. Hema and her lawyer had allegedly gone to Vidyadhar’s warehouse on the ill-fated night to settle the deal.
The investigations have revealed that the ghastly crime was committed at Vidyadhar’s warehouse at Kandivli. Sadhu Rajbhar and other perpetrators used kerchief soaked in chloroform which was readily available at the warehouse to render the two unconscious. later, they allegedly tied the two and gagged them to death on the night of December 11.
The investigators attributed the presence of chloroform at the warehouse to the fact that Rajbhars would use this chemical to clean the moulds of fabricated installations they would make for Hema and her husband Chintan.
After killing Hema and her lawyer Bhambani, the perpetrators used card boxes available at the warehouse to pack the two bodies and transported them in a tempo. The boxes were dumped into an open drain in laljipada locality at Kandivli (west) in north Mumbai.