Mumbai: An interior designer was killed and his business partner was injured after a group of assailants shot them down around 11.30 a.m. on Tuesday in Thakurli in the Thane district.
Preliminary investigations indicate that the attack was the result of a ‘turf war’, with another interior designer exacting revenge from the deceased for accepting assignments on his turf.
According to the Dombivali police, Kishore Chaudhari (48) and his partner Nitin Joshi (45) had recently started an interior designing job in the Devi Shivamrut building in Sambhbaji Nagar in Thakurli. On Tuesday morning, they were discussing some business matters in the flat they were working in, when eight to 10 men barged inside, opened fire at them and fled the scene. Witnesses later told the police that the assailants fled in two four-wheelers.
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Both the men fell to the ground bleeding, and witnesses rushed them to Shivam Hospital in Thakurli. Chaudhari was declared dead before admission because of multiple gunshot wounds, while Joshi was admitted for treatment. The Dombivali police were subsequently alerted, and a team was sent to to crime scene to conduct inquiries. The police collected evidence, including used handgun shells, and spoke to several of the witnesses before registering an FIR.
The police said that according to post-mortem and medical reports and crime scene evidence, the assailants fired at least 10 to 12 rounds. While Chaudhari sustained eight gun shot wounds, Joshi took a bullet to the torso. He is being shifted to Mumbai for further treatment, officers said.
“Three days ago, a local interior designer, on learning that Chaudhari had got a project in the building, had barged into the building compound and threatened its residents against giving contracts to anyone other than him. Some of the residents had called the Dombivali police to complain against him at the time, and a team was sent to the spot. But the miscreants had left by then,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police Sandip Bhajibhakare, Economic Offences Wing and Cyber Cell, who currently holds additional charge of Zone III in Thane.
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Mr. Bhajibhakare said investigations till now had thrown up enough indications to establish the involvement of the rival interior designer, but declined to reveal details. “We have identified the accused and are in the process of tracing and apprehending them,” he said.
Sources said the police have sent several teams to parts of Thakurli and Dombivali, where at least four of the accused, all of them related to each other, reside. Searches are also under way at the residences of their friends and family members, and their cell phones are also being tracked.