Saturday, April 28, 2012

Kakkar killing planned over two weeks: Palande to cops

Vijay Palande has told the police that he and his accomplices hatched the plot to kill aspiring producer Karankumar Kakkar about two weeks before they murdered him in March. To execute the killing, they bought from a mall in the western suburbs a knife and a cleaver, and to ensure that no traces are left behind they got rubber gloves, bottles of phenyl, large disposal bags and two suitcases.

Kakkar was killed, according to police sources, on March 5, the day his Delhi-based family found his cellphone switched off for the first time. Earlier the same day, Kakkar had texted a friend, saying that Palande intended to put him in touch with an investor willing to give him Rs 3.5 crore for starting up a production house.

An officer said the police are making "a panchnama of the articles used in the killing" and will next try to find if there exists CCTV footage of Palande and his accomplices-Dhananjay Shinde and Manoj Gajkosh-buying the articles in the mall.

During interrogation, Gajkosh told investigators that he went with Shinde, Palande and Kakkar to a hotel in Lokhandwala on March 5. At the hotel, while Shinde and he waited, Palande spiked Kakkar's drink. Soon after, Kakkar began feeling light-headed and asked Palande to drive them home in the aspiring producer's BMW.

Around 8.30pm, the group reached Kakkar's flat at Oberoi Springs in Andheri. As he laid down to sleep, Kakkar was stabbed to death. His body was then moved to the bathroom, where Palande and Shinde chopped it into pieces till 4am. The remains were stuffed into plastic bags, which, in turn, were put into two suitcases. The accused men then washed the floor many times with phenyl water, officers claimed.

The next evening, the accused men left with the suitcases for Chiplun in Ratnagiri district in Kakkar's BMW. On the way, they dumped the body parts at Kumbharli ghat but retained the suitcases. They later got the BMW washed at a service centre in Pune and left it in the parking lot of a Pune housing complex.

Based on Palande and Shinde's statements, the police took Palande to Kumbharli ghat, where they found some body parts. The police believe the remains are of Kakkar, but his family has expressed doubt because, it says, the discovered skull is too small to be Kakkar's.

According to investigators, the two suitcases used in Kakkar's murder were recovered from the Oshiwara residence of Anuj Tikku. They suspect that Gajkosh and Shinde planned to transport the chopped body of Arun's father, business consultant Arunkumar Tikku, in the same suitcases. But the two had to abandon the plan and flee because a neighbour raised an alarm.

Meanwhile, Simran Sood, who has now also been booked in the murder of Tikku, was produced before the Esplanade court on Friday, which remanded her to police custody till May 9. The police told the court that she is a link between the murders of Kakkar and Tikku.

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