Dindoshi police arrested Mandan Mohan Pandya, a tea stall owner, for allegedly strangulating Malad-based jeweller Naresh Jain to death and then setting his body ablaze.
MUMBAI: It was a classic case of the murderer shouting ‘murder, murder’! Dindoshi police on Tuesday arrested Mandan Mohan Pandya, a tea stall owner, for allegedly strangulating Malad-based jeweller Naresh Jain to death and then setting his body ablaze.
The police said it was Pandya who killed Jain and then dumped his body in a gunny bag before setting it on fire near the staircase of Shivbaug building in Malad. After setting it on fire, Pandya went to his room and came out a few minutes later when the residents raised an alarm.
“He and the residents started dousing the fire and alerted the police,” said police inspector Hemant Patil from Dindoshi police station.
Whodunnit
During investigations, the police were searching the premises for clues. A trail of blood from the spot where the semi-charred body of Jain was found, led the police to the Malad branch of the Punjab National Bank (PNB), situated on the ground floor of the same building, deputy commissioner of police Shivaji Bodke said.
The bank was yet to open on Monday. “We found out that Pandya had a set of duplicate keys. The bank had given him the keys as he used to sleep inside the bank during the night and clean the premises in the morning,” Bodke said. The police found more bloodstains on the sofa of the bank. On searching the basement of the bank, some more stains were found by the police. “We questioned Pandya regarding the bloodstains. He confessed almost instantly to killing Jain,” Bodke said.
Why...
According to the police, Pandya wanted to buy a house a few months back and took a loan of Rs50,000 from Jain. “Jain gave the loan but charged a whopping 85 per cent interest on the loan. Because of the high interest rate, the outstanding loan went up to Rs5 lakh within a few months,” said senior police inspector Uttam Khairmode, of Dindoshi police station.
Khairmode said that Pandya had sold his old house and paid Rs2 lakh to Jain, but Jain would not budge from the Rs5 lakh demand. “Pandya told us that his inability to repay the debt forced him to plan Jain’s murder,” he said.
And how...
Madan Pandya hatched a plan to kill Naresh Jain on Saturday night, said the police. “Pandya had met Jain on Saturday and told him he had would repay his loan on Sunday morning. He called Jain to the bank on Sunday,” Bodke said. On his way to the bank, he told his mother he was going out for urgent work, Bodke added.
“Jain entered in the PNB office, where Pandya was waiting for him. He asked Jain to sit on sofa in the bank. Ceasing the opportunity, Pandya attacked him from behind and strangled him using a nylon rope,” said Bodke.
Pandya allegedly packed his body in a gunnysack and kept it in the basement of the bank. He kept
the body in the bank whole of Sunday and till wee hours of Monday. In the stealth of night, he brought the gunnysack near the staircase and set it on fire.
The Jains’ tragedy
Suresh Jain, Naresh’s brother-in-law, said, “He was a regular customer of Pandya and treated him as a family member. Naresh also gave him the loan when he wanted to purchase a house. But what did Pandya gave in return, a brutal death?”
“Naresh’s 28-year-old wife Mansi is inconsolable and is unconscious ever since she came to know about the incident. Pandya should have at least thought about the 18-month-old son of Naresh before committing such a heinous crime,” Suresh said.
s_somendranath@dnaindia.net
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