Exactly 10 days before she was brutally murdered, installation artist Hema Upadhyay had a heated argument with Vidhyadhar Rajbhar, the prime suspect in the Kandivali double murder case, on the phone.
Exactly 10 days before she was brutally murdered, installation artist Hema Upadhyay had a heated argument with Vidhyadhar Rajbhar, the prime suspect in the Kandivali double murder case, on the phone. Rajbhar had taken a sum of Rs 2 lakh from Hema, but he was returning the money very slowly in irregular installments of Rs 3,000-5,000, which upset Hema, revealed her domestic help, Lalit Mandal. Mr Mandal told The Asian Age, “It was just 10 days before her murder, when madam had called Rajbhar and in a few minutes her voice became loud. She was angry at him for not returning the money.”
It was Mr Mandal who had informed the police when the artist went missing and identified her body. A native of Bihar, he has been working in the household of Hema and her husband Chintan for the last 10 years. Earlier, his brother was working as Chintan’s aide, but 10 years ago he had brought Mr Mandal in the Juhu flat.
According to Mr Mandal, initially the couple had a normal relationship, but for the last four years they had ceased talking to each other. “Hema never said anything bad about Chintan,” said Mr Mandal. According to him, they never had open fights but just simply stopped talking.
Every time Chintan used to visit Mumbai he used to call Mr Mandal to order his room. “Sir never had food in the house, and he used to keep his room locked from the inside, but whenever he needed tea, he would inform me. The last time he came here (the first week of December 2015) he called me on my phone before leaving from the house, as I was out with madam and he wanted me to iron his clothes,” he said.
“When saab was leaving the house for the last time, he said ‘bye’ to madam thrice but she was on the phone and realised this much later,” said Mr Mandal. During Chintan’s visit, Hema avoided going to her studio and she worked from home, Mr Mandal said.
On Monday the bail application of Chintan will be tabled in the Dindoshi sessions court. Investigation agencies are trying to prepare a watertight case and Rajbhar’s visit to Jaipur (where Chintan’s house is located) when Chintan was in Mumbai just a week before Hema’s murder is their main ground for doubting the latter.
