Hema Upadhyay case: Court extends Chintan’s police custody till January 4
The Borivali Metropolitan Magistrate Court on Friday decided to extend police custody of Chintan Upadhyay, suspected to be involved in the murder of his artist-wife Hema Upadhyay, till January 4. The police also filed an application seeking permission for narco-analysis of Chintan.
Investigation officer of the case, Sudhir Dalvai, while seeking extension of Chintan’s police custody, informed the court that they had recovered a few hand-made sketches and a hand-written diary from Chintan’s Delhi house along with a few memory cards, an iPad, portable hard disk and pen drive and officials suspected that these contained evidence regarding the murders and were yet to read them. Mr Dalvai also informed the court that the liquid substance used for the double murder had been recovered and had been purchased from Bangalore. Officials had reached the person who purchased it and were trying to trace links between him and Chintan.
A police source informed The Asian Age that since Chintan’s last hearing, officials were suspecting that there was one more person involved in the murder conspiracy and chances were the person was a Maharashtrian local. Police sources said officials had made a DVD of all the CCTV footage of the last ten months of Chintan’s office and workshop.
During the arguments in court, Chintan’s lawyer, Niteen Pradhan, asked for the case diary supposed to be with the Crime Branch. Mr Pradhan told the court that since day one, the Crime Branch had been questioning Chintan and there had to be a diary entry of the same and officials should produce it in court as the diary could be relevant here. Mr Pradhan also informed the court that Chintan had orthopaedic problems and officials had not provided him any bed sheet which, for an orthopaedic patient, was third-degree torture itself. However, the ortho test application was rejected by the court and so was the home food application.
Chintan was arrested on December 22 after being questioned by the Crime Branch, and was sent to police custody till January 1. The double murder came to light after the bodies of Hema and her lawyer Haresh Bhambhani were found stuffed in two boxes in a drain in suburban Kandivali.
Bending laws Chintan’s counsel, Jaishri Bharadwaj, moved court on Wednesday claiming that Chintan was getting third-degree torture by cops at Kandivali police station. Later, doctors at J.J. Hospital said he was fit after making him undergo a check-up. With this, there are chances of initiating perjury proceedings against Ms Bharadwaj.
Accused Azaad Rajbhar’s lawyer told The Asian Age that his client was a minor and his family had informed lawyer Khurshid Ansari about this. Mr Ansari was now checking all his documents. If the claim proves to be true, the lawyer plans to move the Human Rights Commission as keeping a juvenile in police custody is unlawful.
