The alleged murderer’s sketch

A week after a senior citizen was found murdered inside her house in Matunga, the police has no clues whatsoever about the identity of the accused. The police is also confused about whether or not the sketch of the accused is accurate.

On June 7, 78-year-old Manjula Vora, a resident of Pranav Residency, was found with her throat slit in her house. The murder had allegedly occurred when Manjula’s elder brother Ravilal was in the next room. Ravilal is said to be suffering from a mental disorder and is wheelchair-bound.

She was discovered in the kitchen of her house by the Vora’s family doctor — Dr Dilip Shaha; who was allegedly visiting the house after Manjula had called him to check on Ravilal’s health. Dr Shaha is also the only witness to have seen the alleged accused, who told him that he was a cook and rushed out before the doctor could ask him his name.

The police, who recorded Dr Shaha’s statement, has also made the sketch of the accused based on his description. But now the authenticity of the sketch is in question. Sources say that while the sketch shows the accused to have a head full of hair, the CCTV footage shows him to have a bald patch.

“The accused, in most of the CCTV footage, is wearing a blue cap. In one bit of the CCTV footage, the accused has a bald patch from his forehead to the centre of his head. But the description given by the witness does not mention any such patch,” said an officer. Following this anomaly, the officials questioned the witness again, but say that the doctor stands by his description.

“We have again reached a dead end. The thin leads we have are getting exhausted,” said an officer. The police has till date questioned nearly 200-250 people employed as cooks in the area.

“Since the man had mentioned to the doctor that he had finished cooking at the Vora’s place and was headed to some other house, we decided to ask the cooks in the building and area, but this yielded no results. Nobody had seen any person matching the description of the said accused,” said an officer.