Hema murder case: Fourth accused sent to police custody

Two days after he was detained in the double murder case of artist Hema Upadhyaya and her lawyer, Shivkumar Rajbhar alias Sadhu was sent to police custody till December 22, even as the prime accused Vidyadhar Rajbhar still remains at large.

Sadhu was brought to Mumbai on Wednesday morning by a team of Mumbai police which had gone to Varanasi and detained him, JCP (Law and Order) Deven Bharti said.

On whether there was any headway in the investigations and whereabouts of Vidyadhar, Bharti said, “Our probe is still on and we have just got a few insights about the crime. We don't have complete details about the way in which the crime was carried out and which of the arrested and wanted accused have played what type of role.”

Interrogation of Sadhu -- the fourth to be arrested in the case -- is likely to establish the roles of each of accused in the killings. Also, it will shed light on the involvement of Hema's estranged husband Chintan Upadhyaya, if any, in the murder, police said.

Bodies of noted installation artist Hema, 43, and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani, 65, packed in cardboard boxes were found in a drain in suburban Kandivali in Mumbai on Saturday.

Their bodies were wrapped in plastic and stashed into two separate cardboard boxes before being dumped there.

So far, the police has arrested four persons in the case namely Azad Rajhbhar, Pradeep Rajhbhar, Vijay Rajhbhar and Shivkumar Rajhar alias Sadhu.

Except Sadhu, who was detained in Varanasi on Monday, the remaining three were picked up from Kandivali on Sunday.

On Tuesday, the trio -- Azad, Pradeep and Vijay – were placed under arrest after being booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention).

The three arrested accused are in the business of manufacturing and selling fibre glass used by Hema and Chintan for their installations.

According to police, the trio along with two other accused -- Sadhu and Vidyadhar -- had killed the artist and her lawyer.

The trio was remanded to police custody till December 19.

Based on leads provided by the three during their sustained questioning, teams of the Mumbai police have been dispatched to various locations in and outside Maharashtra to nab Vidyadhar, who used to make the material required by Hema for her work.

A hunt was launched for Vidyadhar soon after detention of Sadhu by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force in Varanasi on Monday following a request by the Mumbai police.

Sadhu had gone public with the claim that the two were killed under instructions from Vidyadhar.

According to police, Azad, Pradeep and Vijay were tracked down on the basis of manufacturing details and batch number of the cardboard boxes which were used for disposing the bodies of the killed duo.

The boxes were generally used for transporting idols. These boxes, along with other details including call records of Hema, led police to a fabrication shop (run by Vidyadhar) near suburban Borivali where the accused were based, a senior police official said.

Vijay was the person who allegedly ferried the cardboard boxes containing the bodies of the deceased in a tempo from the warehouse of Vidyadhar in Kandivali.

The tempo driver had claimed that he was unaware of the contents inside the boxes.

Hema, a Baroda-born painter, was locked in bitter divorce proceedings with her husband Chintan.

She had in 2013 filed a case against him alleging that he painted obscene pictures of women on the walls of their matrimonial home in Mumbai to harass her. Bhambhani had represented Hema in this case.