With the arrest of two persons, the Charkop police on Monday ripped the lid off a conspiracy behind a shocking triple murder that had taken place in the guise of a massive fire that ripped through a Saibaba temple at Kandivili in north Mumbai on Sunday.
Achieving a breakthrough in the case within 24 hours of the sensational crime, the police arrested two persons – a minor boy and a 20-year-old youth – in connection with the incident which was initially considered as an accident.
Three persons --- Mahesh R. Gupta (24) Yuvraj V. Pawar (28) and Subhash A. Khode (29) -- were burnt alive in the incident that took place in the early hours of Sunday.
The three persons were sleeping on the Sai Sadichha Temple premises when a suspected electric short circuit-triggered fire broke out there on Sunday. Three persons were charred to death in the fire.
The fire brigade and police surmised the blaze was the result of a short-circuit followed by a blast in an air-cooler or a water-cooler gas cylinder. After initial investigations, the police had registered an accident death report in connection with the incident.
However, acting on a tip-off that there was foul play behind the mishap, the Charkop Police cracked what turned to be a meticulously planned triple-murder inside the temple premises.
Police said that the two arrested were working as employees at a nearby shop. The duo nursed an old grudge with one of the victims. “The investigations have revealed that one of the victims used to harass the two arrested persons for the past one year. On Thursday last, one of the victims -- Yuvraj Pawar – allegedly assaulted the 20-year-old accused boy. The two arrested boys were nursing a grudge against Pawar for quite some time and were even keeping a watch on his movements. They had even hatched a conspiracy to kill him,” Inspector Rajendra Satpute of the Charkop Police station said.
According to Satpute, the two arrested persons – after a drinking session on the temple premises – transferred petrol from their scooter into a plastic can, poured it all over the place on temple premises and set it afire. At that time, three deceased persons were sleeping on the temple premises.
While the sleeping victims Pawar, Gupta and Khode were killed on the spot after one of the gas cylinders kept at the temple exploded all of a sudden, the 20-year old accused sustained burn injuries.
“We have established that the motive behind the crime was personal enmity. We have now registered a case of murder against the two arrested persons,” Satpute said.