A security guard, hailing from Punjab, who has been arrested by a joint team of police officials from Karnataka and Goa, for the murder of celebrity perfumer Monika Ghurde, had a spat with the deceased two months earlier, a senior police official said.
Raj Kumar, a native of Bhatinda in Punjab was arrested from Bengaluru on Sunday afternoon, following a series of ATM card withdrawals to the tune of Rs1 lakh, by the accused using the deceased’s card.
“He was arrested today afternoon and is being brought to Goa. Once he is here, we will be in a position to interrogate him and establish the exact motive. He has already confessed to his crime to the police team which nabbed him,” Deputy Inspector General Vimal Gupta told a Press conference on Sunday at the police HQ in the State capital. Gupta said that the accused had confessed to murdering Ghurde to the team of officials who conducted his arrest and are enroute Goa along with Kumar.
Gupta, however, refused to reveal the exact motive behind the murder, saying the same would be extracted from the accused after he is brought to Goa and subjected to interrogation in police custody.
Gupta also said, that the victim was involved in a spat with the accused, after the former had complained about the latter, working as a security guard in the apartment complex, about not being regular with his duties.
“We found out that he was removed from the job on complaint of the deceased for not doing his job properly,” Gupta said. The senior police official also said that the accused was tracked down on the basis of cash withdrawals made by the accused using Ghurde’s ATM card.
“He has withdrawn money from ATMs in Goa, Mangalore and Bengaluru. We managed to match his identity with the CCTV footage in ATMs and his photo is available with the Goa Police,” Gupta said, adding that all persons working as security guards need security clearance and their photos as routinely stored with local police station.
Ghurde was found in a state of partial undress and tied to the bed on Friday in her three-bed room apartment complex in Sangolda village, 10 kms from Panaji.