The bodies of well-known Indian artist Hema
Upadhyay, 43, and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani, 65, were discovered inside cardboard
boxes near a drain in Mumbai on Saturday, December 12.
The grisly discovery was reportedly made by a street
cleaner who saw a
leg protruding from a cardboard box in one of the city's drains. The
pair are believed to have been strangled. Both victims are said to have
been stripped to their underwear and
their bodies had been wrapped in plastic sheets and sewn up. Mr
Bhambhani had been badly
beaten and his eyes were covered with tape.
Hema
was estranged from her husband Chintan, also an artist, and was locked
in bitter divorce proceedings with him. The Baroda-born artist had in
2013 filed a harrassment case against Chintan, alleging he painted
obscene pictures of women on the walls of their matrimonial home.
Bhambani represented her in the case.
One of her domestic help lodged a missing complaint with Santa Cruz police station on Saturday after she did not return home on Friday.
Bhambhani's wife also filed a missing complaint with Matunga police
station since he did not return home after having told them he was going
to meet a client. Police questioned Mr Upadhyays's estranged husband,
Chintan, her driver and domestic servants.
The
Mumbai police today arrested the three persons detained earlier and
booked them for murder. The fourth suspect, arrested in Varanasi
yesterday, will be brought to the city soon and produced before the
court and police will seek his remand.
The three suspects - Azad Rajbhar, Pradeep Rajbhar and Vijay Rajbhar were booked under IPC 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), Deputy Commissioner of Police Vikram
Deshmane told reporters.
They are in the business of manufacturing and selling fibre glass
used by Hema and her estranged husband and artist Chintan Upadhyaya for
their installations. They were produced in a local court which remanded
them in police custody till December 19, Deshmane said.
Refusing to divulge further details, he said investigations were on
into the case. Based on the leads provided by the three during their
sustained questioning, teams of Mumbai Police have been dispatched to
various locations outside Maharashtra to track down and nab the key
accused, Vidyadhar Rajbhar, who used to make the material required by
Hema for her work.
Meanwhile, Vijay Rajbhar's wife Saroj Rajbhar, who came to Kandivali
police station along with her children, claimed before mediapersons that
her husband was innocent.
"My husband is innocent. He is being falsely implicated. He was just
ferrying the transport vehicle (in which the cardboard boxes stuffed
with the bodies of Hema and Bhambhani were kept) and was unaware of the
content in the boxes."
According to police, Vidyadhar, Sadhu and the three arrested persons
allegedly killed Hema and Bhambhani on Saturday last. Police had earlier
said the arrest of Vidyadhar, a resident of Shamsi Housing Society in
suburban Kandivali, would shed light on whether the murder was a fallout
of a financial dispute between him and Hema, or whether it was a
contract killing with some other motive.
The police have sealed Vidyadhar's warehouse in Kandivali. According
to police, on Saturday night, the day they were believed to have been
killed, Vidyadhar had called Hema on her mobile at around 7.30 PM. A
hunt was launched for Vidyadhar soon after detention of Sadhu by the UP
Special Task Force in Varanasi yesterday following a request by Mumbai
police. Sadhu had gone public with the claim that the two were killed
under instructions from Vidyadhar.
The killings have shocked India's art community. The Vadehra Art
Gallery, which represented Ms Upadhyay, said they had lost "one of the
most talented Indian artist."
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