Two months after 23-year-old techie Esther Anuhya was found dead, the Mumbai police on Monday claimed a major breakthrough with the arrest of a 37-year-old man, who was, in fact, detained and let off earlier in the same case.
The accused, Chandrabhan Sanap alias Ekka, a resident of Kanjurmarg police limits and a native of Nashik, was the man who was spotted in the CCTV footage accompanying Anuhya at the Kurla railway station.
Giving details of the investigation at a press conference in Mumbai, Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria said Ekka, posing as a cabbie, had convinced Anuhya he would drop her at her residence in Andheri soon after she alighted from the train at the Kurla station on Jan 4. Ekka was in an inebriated condition at the time. “Ekka went to the station with the intention of robbing. Posing as a taxi driver, he convinced the victim to hire him for `300. At the parking lot of the station, the victim realised he did not have a car but a bike. She was initially hesitant but agreed to go along with him after he gave her his mobile and told her to give his details to her family or friends. The victim had zero balance on her mobile but pretended as if she had made a few calls. Once they reached the Eastern Express Highway, the accused moved the bike to the service road and tried to rob her. When she resisted, he beat her and banged her head to the ground and strangled her with a scarf,” the Commissioner explained. The police recovered Anuhya’s trolley bag from a village near Nashik. The accused had given the bag to a beggar there. “We could not confirm sexual assault on the victim. The suspect claims he did not sexually assault her. This is still under investigation,” Maria said.
However, he said Ekka had a criminal past and committed various offences in Mumbai and other places. “The accused is also a womaniser and got addicted to alcohol after he quit working as a porter. To elude the police, Ekka had grown a moustache and a beard,” he said.
Ekka used to work as a porter in the Kurla railway station but sold the badge later on. The police also picked up one of his friends, Kishore Sahoo, from his house in Jharkhand for allegedly helping Ekka cover up the crime.
The Commissioner said the police had questioned more than 2,500 persons including auto/cab drivers, porters and others in connection with the case. The accused was produced before a local court which remanded him in police custody till March 15.
Father Not Convinced
Anuhya’s father S Prasad alleged that the Mumbai Police have washed their hands of the case. “What about her mobile phone and laptop? Why has the police failed to recover the laptop and mobile of Anuhya from the arrested person? If Ekka had committed the crime, he might also have stolen her laptop and mobile,” Prasad told Express.
“The police said Anuhya talked over the mobile of the arrested person at the railway station. Who was she talking to? Mumbai police must answer these questions,” he said. He confirmed the Mumbai police had sent him a photograph of the recovered trolley bag.
Mystery Solved?
Railway informers on seeing the CCTV footage identified the person accompanying Anuhya as Ekka, a former porter. They even gave the police his address in Thane. The Railway crime branch went to his Thane residence where his mother immediately identified the man in the footage as her son and told them he had gone to Nashik. The police team went to Nashik but only to find that he went to Yavatmal. They went there only to know that he went back to Nashik where they finally got him. The team questioned him for nearly four to five hours and let him off after learning that he was very much in Thane on the fateful day. The Mumbai crime branch sources said they had till questioned around a dozen suspects who look like the mysterious man in the CCTV footage.
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