She had revealed this to Haresh Bhabani and his wife in a meeting held a day before her murder.
On December 10 — a day prior to her murder — artist Hema Upadhyay visited her lawyer Haresh Bhambani’s house and during a conversation with him and his wife, she showed a photo of a sketch of a woman who resembled her. Below it, ‘I will destroy you’ was written. The sketch, by Hema’s husband Chintan Upadhyay, was left by him in the Juhu flat where she was residing. Hema had found the sketch after Chintan’s last visit to their house, between December 3 to 8. The incident came to light in the 1,658-page chargesheet that was filed by the Kandivali police in court in the connection with Hema and Haresh’s murder.
According to the chargesheet, Poonam Bhambani, Haresh’s wife, in her police statement, had informed the officials that Hema visited them on December 10 when she informed them that a Jaipur-based person was in Mumbai. He supposedly was in possession of a vulgar video of Chintan and claimed that it could help Hema in their divorce case. Hema had requested Bhambani to accompany her to verify the video.
Another witness in the case, Shankarlal Gopallal Suthar, Hema’s office boy, informed the police that that he had visited her Andheri studio on December 4, a week prior to her murder, and noticed that she was upset. Hema informed Suthar that Chintan was at her home, so she was feeling down and unable to concentrate on her work. Suthar was concerned over the fact that Chintan had never gone to his Juhu flat but this time he stayed there for a whole week.
In November, Suthar met Vidhyadhar, the main accused in the case, who on the pretext of a having bought a new cellphone, asked the former for Hema’s contact number. Later, Suthar learnt that when Vidhyadhar paid a visit to Hema’s studio she told him not to come without making an appointment.
On December 11, Shankar noticed that Hema had received a call and she was scared as the caller told her that anything could happen to her, after which she removed her studio’s nameplate and closed the doors. Earlier, on December 4, Hema had informed Suthar on WhatsApp that she was worried about Chintan’s trip to city.
In the chargesheet, the Kandivali police submitted statements of as many as 53 witnesses. To ascertain Chintan’s role in the murder, the police attached the statements of two private cab drivers who had informed them about the artist’s visit to Chembur, where officials suspect a meeting in which the murder conspiracy took place occurred.
