MUMBAI: Manish Mazgaonkar, a city-based lawyer, had lost hopes of getting justice for his late mother Nalini, who was allegedly killed by his father Kisan in 1993. The file pertaining to Nalini’s death was buried somewhere in the police records for almost 22 years. Manish’s consistent efforts to reopen the case bore fruit last week.
The city police have not only begun a re-investigation into the case, but also filed a chargesheet in Bhoiwada court against Kisan.
Manish was seven years’ old when he saw Kisan and his paternal aunt Shashikala alias Baby Patankar, the biggest woman drug lord of the city, thrash Nalini on April 22, 1993 for opposing storage of drugs in their house at Siddharth Nagar in Worli.
Manish had seen his mother writhing in pain. Her body turned blue following which Kisan shifted her immediately to his maternal uncle’s home in the vicinity.
The next day, Manish learnt that Nalini had passed away and was cremated hurriedly. Interestingly, when Kisan was beating up Nalini, the police were looking for him. He had dodged the cops while he was on parole in another murder case.
Kisan was convicted for a murder which he had committed in 1972 and escaped while out on parole. The police arrested him again in 2004. Since then, he has been lodged in Pune’s Yerwada jail. Manish had narrated his life story to Express in February. At the same time, he also filed an application with the Dadar police demanding re-opening of Nalini’s murder case, as a First Information Report (FIR) was filed in 1993 based on a complaint by Manish’s elder brother Vivek, who is also a lawyer. The FIR had not named anyone as an accused or suspect. Manish sought details of the case under the Right to Information Act (RTI) to check the status of the investigation. He also approached the Bombay High Court with a plea to bring back Kisan to the city and make him an accused in Nalini’s murder case.
The police chargesheet has accused Kisan of abetment to suicide. “I am sure the re-investigation will result in the charges being converted into murder,” Manish told Express. Manish, who studied criminal law with the sole purpose to see Kisan punished for his crime, had not seen his father since Nalini’s death, till the Dadar police brought him to the city from Pune last week. He hates to identify him as his father and calls him only by name. “The police had called Vivek to record his statement. I also went along with him. There we saw Kisan in the lock-up. He recognised me and asked, ‘Vakil saheb kase aahat? (How are you, lawyer sir?)’. I ignored him and did not reply,” said Manish.