A man who was murdered at a spa in Mumbai’s Worli area on Wednesday was identified as history sheeter Guru Waghmare. He had tattooed the names of 22 people on his body who could potentially harm him. Three suspects were arrested a day after the crime, police said Thursday.
The spa owner, Santosh Sherekar was one of the arrested accused. His name was also amongst the names of 22 people tattooed on the murder victim’s body. Besides him, the two alleged assailants were also arrested and two more persons were apprehended.
The victim, 48-year-old Guru, claimed to be a Right to Information activist but had several criminal cases registered against him. He was killed at Soft Touch Spa in central Mumbai’s Worli in the early hours of Wednesday.
During the autopsy, it was found that he had tattooed the names of his potential enemies on his thighs, an official said.
According to police, the owner of the spa, Sherekar, having been fed up with Guru’s extortion threats, had allegedly hired contract killers to murder him.
He allegedly paid Rs 6 lakh to Mohammed Feroze Ansari, 26, also a spa owner, to kill Guru.
Ansari ran a spa at Nallasopara near Mumbai which was shut down due to a raid last year. The raid on Ansari’s spa took place following Guru’s complaint to the authorities, the official said.
Ansari had approached Sherekar seeking to stop Waghmare from filing such complaints and extorting money from spa owners. Sherekar allegedly asked him to have Waghmare eliminated, the police official noted.
Ansari then contacted Saquib Ansari, a Delhi resident, and hatched the conspiracy three months ago, he added.
After conducting a recce and observing Guru’s routine for three months, the accused planned to kill him at Sherekar’s spa, the official stated.
CCTV footage outside a liquor bar in Sion where Guru had celebrated his birthday with his 21-year-old girlfriend on Tuesday evening showed the two assailants in raincoats tailing him. The duo followed Guru to Sherekar’s spa on a scooter later that night.
One of the assailants bought two gutka packets from a paan shop near the liquor bar, paying through a UPI system. UPI record revealed that his name was Mohammed Feroze Ansari, police said.
Further investigation revealed that Sherekar had received multiple calls from the phone number linked to Ansari’s UPI ID.
Feroze and Saquib Ansari entered the spa around 1:30 am on Wednesday, took Guru’s girlfriend to another room, and then allegedly murdered him using the separated blades of a pair of scissors costing Rs 7,000. The accused used one of the blades to slit his throat, while the other was used to stab him in the stomach.
Guru’s girlfriend claimed to have learnt about the murder the next day only at about 9:30 am and informed Sherekar, who, in turn, informed the police, but only after about two hours, the official said.
Police detained Sherekar for questioning and put him under arrest after interrogation throughout the day.
Feroze Ansari, on the other hand, was arrested by a crime branch team from suburban Nalasopara, while Saquib Ansari was picked up from Kota in Rajasthan en route to New Delhi along with two more people who were suspected to be involved in the conspiracy, the official added.
A total of five people have been apprehended, the official said, adding that the role of Guru’s girlfriend in his murder is also being investigated.
Guru allegedly used to extort money from spa owners in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, and Palghar from 2010 and had criminal cases of extortion, rape and molestation registered against him, another official said.
There were eight cognisable offences and 22 non-cognisable cases registered against him, he added.
(With PTI inputs)
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