The Borivali metropolitan magistrate court on Monday sent Chintan Upadhyay to judicial custody for his alleged involvement in the killing of his estranged wife and her lawyer.
The Borivali metropolitan magistrate court on Monday sent Chintan Upadhyay to judicial custody for his alleged involvement in the killing of his estranged wife and her lawyer. Metropolitan magistrate Prasad Kulkarni ordered Chintan to be sent to judicial custody till January 11 with the other accused. The agency produced him in Borivali court this morning following the expiry of his remand.
On December 11 last year, bodies of artist Hema Upadhyay and her advocate Haresh Bhambhani were found stuffed in two boxes in a drain in Kandivali. Chintan was arrested on December 22, and was in police custody till Monday. The other four accused — Pradip Rajbhar, Vijay Rajbhar, Shivkumar Rajbhar and Azaad Rajbhar — are also in judicial custody. However, prime suspect Vidyadhar Rajbhar is still at large.
The Kandivali police is still clueless about the motive of the murder and the specific involvement of Chintan. They had applied for a narco test on him on January 1, and the court will hear the application on January 8.
Sources informed The Asian Age that Chintan has already informed his lawyers about his unwillingness to undergo narco, brain mapping and lie detector tests. Without his consent, the tests cannot be conducted. The magistrate refused the plea for home food and more medical tests, saying that Chintan was undergoing medical tests every 12 hours.
According to police sources, as they do not have strong grounds against Chintan, they were expecting leads about the murder from the narco test. The Kandivali police has found several sketches, a diary and a pen drive from Chintan’s residence, but maintain that the cause of death of the two is unknown and they are awaiting forensic and chemical analysis reports.
The defence lawyer raised concerns of Chintan’s safety and informed the magistrate about the alleged bad behaviour of the families of the deceased. Defence lawyer Amarendra Mishra said that his team had verbally informed the court that they feared families of the complainants would harm their client. The court ordered the police to ensure the safety of Chintan.
Gope Bhambani, brother of deceased lawyer Haresh, wrote a letter to the Family Court Bar Association on Monday, stating: “The murder conspiracy was plotted by Chintan Upadhyay after realising that he was on the precipice of losing his legal battle against Hema, who was a client of Haresh and, unable to withstand this blow, he viciously chose to eliminate both of them.”
According to Gope, now that Hema and Haresh are dead, Chintan wins all the pending cases and becomes the sole owner of properties held by the estranged couple. Gope has also claimed that the court had prohibited Chintan from remarrying till the conclusion.
