Installation artist Hema Upadhyay was upset when her artist husband Chintan Upadhyay was visiting the city on December 4 last year, a week prior to her murder, according to a WhatsApp message she had sent to one of her friends. “Hope he goes back, it is very stressful for me, where will this stress go.” — reads the message which is now part of the 1,658-page-long chargesheet, which was submitted by the Kandivali police on Friday to the Borivali metropolitan magistrate court.
In the chargesheet, the police attached call data records of Hema and Chintan along with other accused of the cases, which is a document of almost 450 pages.
In the chargesheet police has attached call data records of one Joseph Alexander, a resident of Bengaluru. The call records of Alexander shows that he was in touch with absconding main accused Vidhyadhar Rajbhar. The police officials had said that the liquid substance which was used to kill Hema and advocate Haresh Bhambani was acquired through Alexander.
The chargesheet reads that Savitri Vanshraj Rajbhar — the mother of Vidhyadhar — in her statement to police, said that after her husband’s death the family came under huge debt of Rs 6 lakh and therefore Vidhyadhar borrowed Rs 6 lakh from Chintan. Of this amount Vidhyadhar returned Rs 2 lakh.
The chargesheet reads that on December 6, Savitri went to their native place and on December 13, she received a call from her son, who informed her that he had killed Hema on Chintan’s order and now Chintan was threatening to kill him.
Poonam Bhambani, wife of the deceased lawyer, told the police that last year, on December 2, Hema had paid a visit to their house in Matunga and informed them that she was not on good terms with her husband.
The chargesheet also says that Hema had received a call from someone who had addressed himself as a resident of Jaipur and told her that he was in Mumbai and had videos of Chintan with another woman, which could help Hema in their divorce battle.
An ex-employee of Vidhyadhar, Divyesh Panchal, informed the officials that on the day of the murder he had left Vidhyadhar’s studio early but when he went there the next day he found him absent. When he inquired about this, he came to know that he had gone out on work. Vidhyadhar has been absconding ever since.
