Hema Upadhyay murder case: Chintan Upadhyay held for murder of Hema, lawyer

Mumbai: The Kandivali police arrested artist Hema Upadhyay’s estranged husband Chintan in the early hours of Tuesday on charges of killing his wife and her lawyer Haresh Bhambani on December 11. Chintan was a suspect in the murder case and was detained last night by Kandivali police after receiving fresh evidence. Later, he along with other accused, was produced in the Borivali metropolitan magistrate court.

Now, Chintan has been sent to police custody till January 1, while the rest of the accused have been sent to police custody till December 28. Other accused Vijay Rajbhar, Aazad Rajbhar and Pradeep Rajbhar were produced in court, while Shivkumar Rajbhar a.k.a. Sadhu who was arrested from Uttar Pradesh was produced before the court for the second time. The main accused, Vidyadhar Rajbhar, who is reportedly close to Chintan, is still at large.

According to a senior police official, Chintan has been booked under Sections 302 (Punishment for murder), 120 (B) (punishment for criminal conspiracy) and Section 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the IPC.

According to police sources, they have received important evidence and based on it arrested Chintan. They are hoping to find the motive of the murder soon. According to sources, now police officials are working on a theory according to which apart from Vidyadhar, one more person is involved in the conspiracy and a meeting took place between all these people where they discussed about the settlement of money.

In the court, lawyers of other four accused opposed the sending of their clients in custody again. Defence lawyers stated in court that their clients were not aware about the killings and now that the police had Chintan in custody, the other four should be released.

Chintan’s advocate Satish Manshide raised questions on his client’s arrest, saying that Chintan had been called by the crime branch many times and had always cooperated with them. He alleged that the cops were linking Chintan to the conspiracy since they have been unable to locate main suspect Vidyadhar. “What breakthrough have the cops got suddenly which resulted in the arrest of Chintan?” asked Mr Manshide.