Mumbai: HDFC bank vice-president Siddharth Sanghvi, who went missing five days ago, was murdered by a cab driver for Rs 30,000, police said on Monday.
The body of the 39-year-old banker, who lived in the upscale Malabar Hills area, was found dumped in Navi Mumbai, leading to the arrest of accused Sarfaraz Shaikh. Police said that the murder took place last Wednesday, the same day that Sanghvi had gone missing.
Shaikh, the police said, had confessed during interrogation that he had killed the banker because he was in dire need of the money to pay the EMI for his motorcycle.
Police said he also worked at the parking bay of Kamala Mills where the victim's office is located, and on Wednesday he had accosted Sanghvi with a knife to demand the money. When Sanghvi refused to give the money, he stabbed him multiple times, the cops said.
After committing the crime, the accused had stuffed the victim's body in his car and disposed it at Kalyan in the neighbouring Thane district, DCP Avinash Kumar said. He later dumped the car in Navi Mumbai, he added.
The vehicle was recovered on Friday with some blood stains on it, Kumar said. "Based on the information provided by Shaikh, we recovered the body this morning," the official said.
The body had some injury marks around neck and has been sent for post-mortem, he said.
A knife, which was allegedly used to commit the crime, has been recovered, the DCP said.
Three days after Sanghvi went missing, his father had received a call, with the caller telling him that his son was safe and he need not worry.
Investigations revealed that the call was made from Sanghvi's phone from Navi Mumbai, although the sim card was different, the police said. The police found that the phone was in possession of Shaikh.
Initially, the accused was booked under IPC sections 364 (kidnapping) and 365 (abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person).
Following recovery of the body, IPC sections 397 (robbery) and 302 (murder) have been added, the official said. The accused was produced before a court which remanded him to police custody till September 19.
Comments
0 comment