Mumbai: Nearly seven weeks after Grant Road resident Kirti Vyas went missing while on her way to work, the Mumbai Police Crime Branch on Saturday arrested two of her colleagues for allegedly murdering her and disposing of her body.
On the morning of March 16, Ms. Vyas, 28, was picked up by Siddhant Tamhankar and Khushi Sajwani, her colleagues at Bblunt Salon in Andheri, from her home in Bharat Nagar, Grant Road. Her colleagues claimed they dropped her near Grant Road railway station, but she neither reached her workplace nor did she return home. Her family approached DB Marg police station.
The case was transferred to the Crime Branch in April after her family met Mumbai Commissioner of Police D.D. Padsalgikar claiming zero progress in the case. According to Crime Branch sources, the first breakthrough came when the police found bloodstains in Ms. Sajwani's car’s boot space. An officer said, “We took samples from the stains, and DNA samples from Ms. Vyas’s parents and sent them to the Directorate of Forensic Science Laboratories, Kalina for testing. The report came in on Friday, confirming that the blood belonged to a female offspring of the Vyases, confirming the murder.”
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Police picked up Ms. Sajwani and Mr. Tamhankar for inquiries on Friday evening, and placed them under arrest early on Saturday. They were produced before the Esplanade Court, which remanded them in police custody till May 11. The officer added, “The investigation has shown that Ms. Vyas, who was senior to Mr. Tamhankar’s at work, had issued him a memo pointing out lapses. We suspect this might be connected to the motive behind the murder, and are interrogating the accused.”
Ms. Vyas was employed as a finance manager, while Mr. Tamhankar is an accounts executive and Ms. Sajwani a manager. The police began suspecting the duo’s involvement when they claimed in their statements that they had dropped the victim near Grant Road railway station. However, cellular location tracking showed all three phones were together till they reached Navjeevan Society, after which Ms. Vyas’s phone was switched off.
The police are looking for the body, and are also questioning other employees at the salon.
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