India | Posted on May 23, 2008 at 12:49am IST

Small evidence gave away TV producers killers

CNN-IBN

Mumbai: An Indian Navy officer Lieutenant ML Jerome Mathew and a Kannada actress Maria Monica Susairaj have allegedly confessed to killing a TV producer Neeraj Grover.

Lieutenant Mathew, accused in the murder of 25-year old Neeraj, came from Kochi.

His alleged partner in crime, Monica Susairaj is already in police custody

Mumbai Crime Branch Deputy Commissioner of Police Shivaji Bodse said," He (Lieutenant Mathew) was produced in the court and now he is in police custody. In due course of time we will interrogate and then we will see."

On May 7, Lieutenant Mathew allegedly stabbed Neeraj with a kitchen knife at Maria's home. Later Maria bought a chopping knife; two sports bags, curtains and bed sheets from a mall.

While she replaced the blood stained curtains and bed sheets, Lieutenant Mathew chopped Neeraj's body into pieces.

They put the pieces into one bag and stained clothes and knife into another. They cleaned the house and drove to Manor beach in a friend's car and then allegedly burnt the bags at a secluded spot.

"The skull and bones have been found. We are sending them for a DNA test," Rakesh Maria, Joint Commissioner, Crime, says.

With Neeraj untraceable for over 24 hours, his family had filed a missing person's report.

Neeraj's brother Nitin Grover said, "We were apprehensive from the very beginning that something was fishy. He never used to leave his cell phone anywhere and the he was also missing for a long time."

Neeraj's cell phone was recovered from Maria's house.

It was an impromptu plan that was executed with almost precision by Lieutenant Mathew and Maria but in their bid to destroy the larger evidence, they overlooked the minute details.

There were over 135 missed calls on Neeraj's cell phone by family and friends since Neeraj went missing.

The security guard at Maria's building said he saw her and Lieutenant Mathew leave in a hurry that fateful day and it was Maria who led the police to Manor beach.

With strong evidence in place, the police are hoping to build a watertight case against the accused.

(With inputs from Karn Kowshik, Shoaib Ahmed, Toral Varia and Kajal Iyer)

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