BBlunt exec murder: Two get life term

Six years after the murder of salon executive Kirti Vyas the sessions court sentenced both accused to life imprisonment on Tuesday The court found both accused guilty of murder stating that the charges against them were provenThe accused Khushi Sahjwani and Siddhesh Tamhankar broke down in court after Judge M G Deshpande announced the verdict Sahjwani who was on bail expressed her disbelief saying she thought she would walk free due to the lack of evidence She noted that none of the witnesses who testified had seen her or her colleague with Vyas on the day she went missingOn hearing his sentence Tamhankar 42 who had been brought to court wearing a black Tshirt shed tears Speaking with midday in the courthouse corridor he said ldquoWhat can I say I donrsquot know why I was arrested and incarcerated for almost seven years I have not done anything and never had any problem with VyasThe police found nothing in my case and 15 months later suddenly there was a blood sample found inside Sahjwanirsquos car and we were arrested The police manipulated everything to frame us because the case was never solved They made us scapegoats despite having no proof against us I had faith in the judiciary and now we will approach the higher courtrdquo he said wiping his tearslsquoMy biggest mistakehelliprsquoTamhankar added ldquoThe police claim that I picked her up from her residence but there is no evidence of this In fact it was I who told the cops that on March 16 the day Vyas went missing I was at HDFC Bank at Grant Road to get some documents for my passport While I was going to the bank with Sahjwani I saw Vyas and said hi to her I used to call her lsquomomrsquo I asked her lsquoMom where are you going I am also going to the office come with usrsquo She said she was getting late and needed to reach the office early so we turned near the bank and dropped her near Grant Road station Later in the evening when I found out she hadnrsquot returned I messaged her asking lsquoMom where are you Your phone is not reachablersquo I told the cops that I dropped her at the station in the morning That was my biggest mistake and today I am convicted in the caserdquolsquoWhere is the justicersquoAsked about the showcause notice Vyas had issued to him for poor performance which the police claim was a motive for the murder he said ldquoI was about to complete five years with the organisation My reporting manager was someone else not Vyasrdquo he said pointing to another person in the court whom he claimed was his manager ldquoI was reporting to someone else How is Vyass showcause notice going to impact me to the extent that Irsquod end up killing her Is there any logic to that I was helping the cops at DB Marg in their probe Suddenly the case was transferred to the Crime Branch and they found blood stains after 15 months and we were arrested I am telling you read the documentsrdquoSahjwani said ldquoWhere is the justice How can you charge us with murder when there is no dead body In the Divya Pahuja case she went missing but her body was later found In this case there is no body There are 39 witnesses and none of them testified that they saw us with Vyas The CCTV footage of her last moment was revealed to the cops by us She is not seen clearly anywhere in the footage Why would we kill her when there was no enmity between us I worked at the same salon for several years There was absolutely no problem between us you can ask anyone thererdquoAccusedrsquos kin break downThe family members of both accused who were present in court also broke down after the courts order ldquoI thought that after six years my brother would walk free and we would take him home but the courtrsquos decision was unexpected We were hopeful as there was no evidence against him only the blood samples which we believe were manipulated I know my brother and I asked him many times about Vyas She was also a woman someonersquos sister and daughter He explained everything to me and I trusted him There is no reason he would have killed her The cops have found scapegoats in both because they were unable to trace the missing girlrdquo said Tamhankarrsquos sister SichitaldquoOur entire family has been destroyed by this case My father died within a year and my mother who was healthy now has several illnesses because of this case I cant describe how much our family has suffered I understand what the family of the deceased is going through but none of them were ever seen in court she addedThe caseVyas who was a resident of Grant Road was working with BBlunt salon in Andheri as an executive in the accounts department She was a charted accountant and law graduate She went missing on March 16 2018 while on her way to her office The DB Marg initially investigated the matter before it was transferred to the Mumbai Crime Branch the thenJoint Commissioner of Crime Sanjay Saxena formed a special team to look into the case The crime branch initially had doubts about both the accused The crime branch took the help of the Kalina Forensic Laboratory staffers who found blood stains in Sahjwanirsquos car after 15 months The stains matched blood samples of Vyasrsquos parents and the accused were arrested by the Crime Branch who later confessed to the cops that they had killed Vyas in a moving car and later dumped her body in a creek near Mahul in Chembur The Crime Branch made all possible attempts to trace her body for several days and even used drones but it has not been found The court convicted the accused on Monday under Indian Penal Code Sections 302 murder 364 kidnapping 201 destruction of evidence and 341 wrongful restraintOfficial SpeakPublic Prosecutor Raja Thakare said ldquoIt was a very challenging case since the body was not available but there was strong circumstantial evidence against the accused The CCTV footage showed they were last seen with her and the call detail reports were incriminating The final piece of evidence was the blood stains found inside the car of one of the accused which played a crucial role in securing the conviction We were very confident despite the unavailability of the body and we correctly cited a Supreme Court order before the court I believe the court has considered all aspects of the case I have not read the full order yet but the judgment is satisfyingrdquoAccording to the prosecution Vyas had handed a showcause notice to accused Tamhankar over his ldquopoor performancerdquo and he had asked her to retract it even the day before she went missing The police claimed that the organisation was looking for Tamhankarrsquos replacement which he did not like Tamhankar who was also having an affair with Sahjwani who was already married to someone else never wanted Vyas to reveal this to anyone according to the police The cops cited these two possible reasons for Tamhankar strangling her on March 16 after picking her up from her residence in the Sahjwanirsquos car promising to discuss the showcause notice and drop her at Grant Road railway stationLakhmi Gautam joint commissioner crime told midday ldquoThe Crime Branch is specialised in dealing with such cases This case was rare where the body was not found but the evidence was supported by very strong circumstantial grounds leaving no probability of anyone elsersquos involvement The forensic team did a great job in finding the blood traces It was a result of the hard work of the crime branch and the forensic team to ensure that the deceased gets justicerdquoInvestigatorrsquos inputsPolice Inspector Sachin Mane the investigating officer of the case played an important role in gathering technical evidence against the accused Speaking to midday he said ldquoI was sure that the accused would receive maximum punishment in the case as their guilt was proven beyond doubt Every single piece of evidence pointed towards them We pieced together everything under the guidance of our seniors and today we can see the resultrdquoHe added ldquoThe accused played smart with the family of the deceased and the police during the initial days of the investigation He never revealed to anyone that he along with the female accused Khushi picked up Vyas from her residence until her family started scanning the CCTV footage He got scared and informed his boss about picking her up from her residence the day she went missing That was the first breakthrough we got to probe his role When we started scanning the call detail records CDRs we found that the phone of the deceased was turned off near Jijamata Nagar in Worli and at the same time the car was there according to CCTV footage This is not a coincidence It deepened our doubt about the accused and when we found bloodstains in the car that matched with the DNA of the deceasedrsquos parents we arrested the accusedrdquoMane is currently posted at the Nehru Nagar police station