After taking into custody four suspects in connection with the gruesome murder of high-profile sculptor-painter Hema Upadhyay and her lawyer Harish Bhambani, the Mumbai Police on Tuesday began a manhunt for the key suspect Vidyadhar Rajbhar, who had allegedly ordered the killing of Hema and her lawyer owing ostensibly to a financial dispute with the artiste.
On a day when they formally arrested three detained suspects — Azad Rajbhar, Pradeep Rajbhar and Vijay Rajbhar — and sought their remand till December 19, the Mumbai police rushed teams to various locations to track down the UP-based key suspect Vidyadhar Rajbhar, a metal fabricator.
A visiting team of investigators from Mumbai is, meanwhile, in the process of bringing the fourth suspect Shivkumar Rajbhar alias Sadhu, whom the Special Task Force (STF) of the Uttar Pradesh police arrested and handed over it, to the metropolis where he will be produced before a city court on Wednesday.
Confirming the formal arrest of Sadhu Rajbhar in Uttar Pradesh, Deputy Commissioner of Police Vikram Deshmane said: “We have booked Sadhu Rajbhar and three other accused for murder and conspiracy. Sadhu is being brought to Mumbai”.
The hunt for Vidyadhar comes on the heels of a disclosure made by Sadhu Rajbhar who had told the media persons in Uttar Pradesh that it was he who had gagged Hema and her lawyer Harish and killed them on the night of December 11 and that he had committed the crime at the behest of his employer (Vidyadhar), who allegedly ordered the killing of Hema.
The bodies of Hema and her lawyer Harsh were recovered from a drain at laljipada locality of Kandivli (west) in north Mumbai on Sunday. Wrapped in plastic sheets, the two bodies were found packed in card board boxes and dumped in a drain. The recovery came after a civic sweeper doing morning rounds found the boxes in a drain in laljipada locality at Kandivli (west) alerted the police.
The crime branch sleuths of the Kandivli police are investigating the conspiracy allegedly hatched by Vidyadhar to kill Hema to settle the financial dispute involving Rs 5 lakh. They are also investigating if there was much more sinister motive than somewhat financial petty financial dispute that Vidyadhar had with Hema.
Rajbhars are in the business of making sculptures and statues made of fibre glass which the Upadhyay couple used to purchase from them.
The investigators have not yet given any clean chit to late Hema’s estranged husband Chintan Upadhyay, whom they have already subjected to several rounds of grilling over his strained relations with his departed wife. Chintan had attended Hema’s funeral held at a crematorium at Santa Cruz on Monday night.
The investigators have, meanwhile, sealed Vidyadhar’s warehouse at Kandivli. It was at Vidyadhar’s warehouse that Sadhu Rajbhar and other perpetrators allegedly tied them and gagged them to death on the night of December 11. After killing Hema and her lawyer Harish, 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.
The four detained persons -- Azad Rajbhar, Pradeep Rajbhar, Vijay Rajbhar and Sadhu Rajbhar had known both Hema and her estranged husband Chintan.
One of them called up Hema on her mobile phone a couple of hours before her murder on Friday evening and called her to the warehouse, where Hema had reached along with her lawyer Harish at around 9 pm.
The police have so far not established any link between late Hema’s estranged husband Chintan and the double murder.
However, the role of Chintan has come under the intense scanner of the police, considering that the relations between him and his Hema had strained considerably over the past three years.
Investigations have revealed that sometime in 2013, Hema had lodged a case under the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986, against her husband Chintan, alleging that he was painting obscene sketches on the walls of her room.
Chintan and Hema, who were classmates at Baroda Faculty of Fine Arts,had married in 1998. After their relations went sour, the couple had filed for divource in 2010.
Both Hema was a big name in the art circles. Hema used “photography and sculptural installations to explore notions of dislocation and nostalgia”
A Bachelor’s (Painting) and Master’s (Printmaking) in Fine Arts from MS University, Baroda, Hema had held several exhibitions in India and other parts of the world.