The police said on Wednesday that the three accused - Vijaykumar, Pradeep and Azad Rajbhar – told them in their interrogation that the main accused, Vidyadhar Rajbhar, was trying to scare Hema Upadhyay by holding a chloroform-soaked cloth to her face when Harish Bhambhani attacked him.
The scuffle that followed led to her killing, after which they had no option but to kill Bhambhani as well.
Hema and Bhambhani’s bodies were found in a drain in Kandivali on Saturday evening, and the police went on to arrest Shivkumar Rajbhar in Uttar Pradesh, and Vijaykumar, Pradeep and Azad in Mumbai. Vidyadhar is still wanted in the case.
“The trio have said in their interrogation that after an argument broke out between Vidyadhar and Hema, he picked up a cloth and dipped it in a can of chloroform that is used to clean the moulds of sculptures.
He soaked the cloth in chloroform and held it over Hema’s face, at which point Bhambhani intervened.
This resulted in Vidyadhar hitting Bhambhani with one hand while keeping the other hand, holding the chloroform-soaked cloth, to Hema’s face. Shivkumar then helped overpower Bhambhani, by which time Hema had gone limp,” said an officer, who is part of the investigating team.
The officer said the accused then tied Bhambhani and wound duct tape over his mouth and eyes, after which they turned their attention to Hema. When they realised that she was dead, they used the same chloroform-soaked cloth to kill Bhambhani, and then took help of the other three accused to dispose of the bodies.
“The accused further said that while they regularly use chloroform in the course of their work, they didn’t know how much to use on a human being and ended up using too much. Reports of the post-mortem have reserved the cause of death pending further analysis, and the viscera of both the victims have been sent to the Forensic Sciences Laboratory for chemical analysis,” the officer said.
Investigators said the panic caused due to Hema’s death led the accused to dispose of the bodies close to their workshop. As a result, the bodies were found in less than 24 hours of the murders. As they had not decomposed, the police were able to identify them, which led the police to the accused.
