In a sensational case, the decomposed body of a 55-year-old woman, chopped into pieces and wrapped in a plastic bag was found in a cupboard at a house at Peru Compound of Lalbaug during the early hours of Wednesday. By afternoon the police apprehended the 24 year old graduate daughter of the deceased who lived with her mother in a tenement on the first floor of Ibrahim Kasam Chawl, Gas Company Lane, Lalbaug.
The matter surfaced after the Kalachowki police got a missing complaint from the woman's brother Sureshkumar Phulchand Pormal, 60. As per Mr. Pormal's statement to the police, he was unable to reach his sister, Veena Prakash Jain for almost two months. He also added that his sister's daughter, Rimple Prakash Jain, was claiming that her mother was "perfectly alright" and didn't allow the former to enter their house. After failing to meet his sister, Mr. Pormal approached the Kalachowki police on Tuesday at around 11:30 pm with a missing complaint.
Going by the regular procedure, the police first went to the missing person's residence. "While searching for any clues we checked the main room first. Then our officers went inside and checked inside the cupboard, we found a huge packed plastic bag. We checked the bag and found the remains of a human body. We immediately escalated the search operation to that of a murder case and started checking everywhere. Inside the bathroom, there was a huge steel vessel which also had a plastic bag, where there were chopped body parts," said an official. Neighbours claimed that they did not get smell of a rotting body for full two months.
The police immediately detained the daughter, Ms Jain, who first claimed to have no knowledge about her mother's body parts lying in the house. She was taken into custody for questioning. During the interrogation, in the afternoon, Ms Jain reportedly confessed to murdering her mother. Ms Jain is the only child of the deceased woman whose husband Prakash Jain died some years ago. Apparently the mother and daughter, who was jobless, used to have quarrels over money matters. But a stronger motive for the gruesome murder appears to be the victim's dislike for the boy friend of Ms Jain. The boy friend is from Uttar Pradesh and a police team has rushed to that state to track him down. The police suspect that the murder could have been jointly executed by Ms Jain and her boy friend.
According to the police, Ms Jain confessed to killing her mother, then chopping her body parts including her hands, and legs, using an electric marble cutter, chopper and a knife, then wrapping it in a plastic bag and storing it for over a couple of months. All of the weapons used for murder were found in the house, which has been sent to the forensic laboratory. It is not clear how she procured the cutting machine etc.
As per police sources, the mother-daughter were living in Virar, but 16 years ago they shifted to the chawl in Parel. The reason for shifting to Parel was the women's brother Mr Pormal lived in that area in Gundcha Garden which was not far away from their chawl.
The neighbours of Ms Jain, the deceased, who knew her for many years say that they haven't seen her venturing out of her house for more than two months. The neighbours thought that she was unwell and that was the reason why she was not seen around. The discovery of the dismembered boy sent shockwaves through the neighbourhood. The police have recorded statements of relatives and neighbours who said often they heard sounds of the mother and daughter quarelling.
Deputy commissioner of police (Zone 4) Dr Praveen Munde said, "The exact motive for the crime is still be ascertained. We will know more as the investigation progresses."
A case has been registered against the daughter, Ms Jain, under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence).
