Clean chit to BMW owner, son in Soumya murder

New Delhi: The owner of a BMW car and his son, under suspicion after a broken rear view mirror of their car was found near the car in which television journalist Soumya Viswanathan was found dead last week, were given a clean chit on Wednesday.

Mudit, son of real estate agent Dinesh Jain, was seen as suspect in the cold-blooded murder of Soumya, 26, after investigators found broken pieces of the rear view mirror of his BMW car from the crime scene.

Soumya, working with the Headlines Today news channel, was found dead in her white Maruti Suzuki Zen car on the Nelson Mandela Road in Vasant Kunj area around 0330 hrs IST on September 30. She was returning from work to her home in Sector-C of Vasant Kunj.

The police in investigations found that the rear view mirror was of a BMW Alpine 2.5-13X-SU model. It was found that five such cars were imported into the country recently and were with three showrooms and two other facilities.

Four cars were sold to people in Connaught Place, Neeti Bagh and Sushant Lok while the fifth one was with one of the dealers.

The police finally zeroed on Vasant Vihar resident Dinesh Jain and found that his son Mudit was behind the wheels of the car on the day of the crime.

“Our investigations showed that Mudit had travelled on the same route around 2030 hrs IST, almost seven to eight hours before Soumya was found dead in her car. Mudit was called for questioning,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South Delhi) HGS Dhaliwal.

Police recorded Mudit's statement. He told police that he had gone to a mall near the crime scene to buy a shirt for his father as a birthday present and apparently broke the rear view mirror on the way.

“His statement was corroborated with the closed circuit television camera installed in the parking of the mall. It was found that when the car entered into the parking lot the rear view was already broken,” he said.

The police said they have given the clean chit to the Jains, but may call them for questioning if required. The police are working on various angles including road rage, personal enmity and robbery to crack the case.