According to the police, the motive of the murder was to rob money and jewellery from the flat, and two of the accused have been arrested in theft cases in the past.

The arrested accused have been identified as Girish Behra (25), Sudheer Pavitra Behra (23), Lullu Sahu (25) and the 15-year-old domestic help. While the first three were arrested on February 16, Sahu was arrested from Woodhouse Road in Colaba on Monday afternoon. The 15-year-old has been sent to the Dongri Remand Home as he is a juvenile offender.

According to the police, the victim, Kiran Khanna (65), was a former Censor Board member, and her husband Nandkishore Khanna is a chartered accountant and a tax consultant residing on the third floor of Bhagwan Apartments at Worli.

On February 4, around 2.40 pm, a man with a bouquet of flowers came to the building saying that he had to deliver it to the Khannas’ flat. The watchman let him go upstairs. After five minutes, a courier boy who said he had a letter for the Khannas was also allowed to go up. Kiran Khanna and the domestic help were in the flat.

After some time, the 15-year-old came out screaming and told a neighbour that Kiran Khanna had been attacked by two men who had left. The neighbour found Khanna lying injured in a bathroom inside the flat. A doctor living in the same building was called to check her condition, before she was rushed to Jaslok Hospital where she succumbed to her injuries the same night. A murder case was registered at the Worli police station.

“The Crime Branch was conducting parallel investigations in the case, and the Property Cell has cracked the murder case and arrested four accused. We are still on the lookout for another accused identified as Bholu Behra. All the arrested accused hail from Dhenkanal district in Orissa,” said Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, Rakesh Maria.

“Girish works as a driver at Venus Apartments, the building next to Bhagwan Apartments. Sudheer is also employed as a driver, and has two cases of theft registered against him at Juhu and Worli police stations in 2002, and has served nine months for the latter. Bholu too has two theft cases against him at Malabar Hill police station. Girish contacted the domestic help, who had been working for the Khannas for only three months. The 15-year-old told him that there was Rs 60 lakh in the flat. That is when they decided to target the Khanna flat,” said Maria.

According to the police, the trio had planned to commit the crime on January 29. However, since Nandkishore Khanna had stayed back home that day, they aborted the plan that day.

“On February 4, after the domestic help messaged them saying that Kiran Khanna was alone at home, Sudheer and Bholu went to the flat. They pushed the domestic help, who pretended to faint. They then tried to tape Khanna’s mouth and tied her hands and feet with rope, but she resisted. They assaulted her and pushed her into the bathroom. When asked where the money was stored, the domestic help pointed to a cupboard, by which time Khanna came out of the bathroom. She was again beaten up and pushed into the bathroom. Sudheer and Bholu then took whatever they could get from the cupboard, took a taxi to Colaba, where they stashed the gold ornaments and distributed the stolen cash at a servants quarters where Sahu lived. They then went to Dhenkanal, before stopping at Nashik, Nagpur and Raipur,” said Maria.

The police said property worth Rs 10.1 lakh had been robbed from the flat, and most of the stolen property is in Orissa and is yet to be recovered.

Santacruz: Domestic help was working for victims Dilip Randhery (72) and wife Varsha (61) for 13 yrs
Crime Branch officers of the Mumbai Police arrested the domestic help of the Randherys, who were found murdered in their Santacruz home, from a wooded area near his native place in Ratnagiri on Sunday evening.

Sandeep Sonu Maingade (29) had fled after the murder of the senior citizen couple on Friday night. About the motive, Maingade told the police: rejection of his request for a soft loan, no raise in salary and a tiff over breaking a plate on Friday. The police have charged Maingade with murder.

Maingade, had been working as a domestic help for Dilip Randhery (72) and his wife Varsha (61) for the last 13 years on their sixth floor residence in Garden Crest building on West Avenue Road in Santacruz (W).

“Maingade told us that he wanted to go to his native place to attend a wedding for which he had sought prior permission from the couple. On Friday, he wanted to collect his newly stitched clothes from a tailor. While he was granted permission to do so, at the last moment, he was asked to buy saplings from a nursery,” said Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, Rakesh Maria.

Maingade said he brought the saplings and was working in the house around 9.30 pm when he accidentally dropped a glass plate, which broke. “Maingade told us that Varsha scolded him for breaking the plate. Maingade got angry and brought up the topic of his increment. When Dilip Randhery tried to intervene, Maingade pushed him and Dilip fell with his head hitting the TV trolley. Maingade noticed a deep wound in Dilip’s head which was bleeding profusely,” said Maria.

According to Maria, Varsha fainted instantly after seeing Dilip’s condition. Maingade then got scared and thought that the Randherys might call the police. At this point, he decided to murder the couple, the police said.

Maingade then brought a knife from the kitchen and stabbed Varsha several times in her chest, killing her, Maria said. “Maingade did not want to leave any evidence and so he decided to burn both the bodies inside the house. He had kept two litres of kerosene at the Randherys’ residence that he had bought for his house in Guzdar Bund slum in Santacruz. Maingade poured the kerosene on the couple and set them ablaze. He took precautions to ensure that neighbours did not notice the smoke—he closed all the windows except for one that faces an open ground,” Maria said.

The police said Maingade stayed near the burning bodies till 3.30 am and “when he saw that the bodies were not burning properly, he decided to flee”. He took away a mangal sutra, two chains, two earrings, one nose ring — all made of gold and Rs 5,500.

Maingade took a cab to Mumbai Central state transport bus station where he boarded a bus for Dapoli and from there went to his village Boke Mathgaon in Ratnagiri district. But Maingade thought it would be safer to stay in the jungle nearby.

“We had formed two teams — one was questioning his friends and family in Mumbai for his whereabouts and the other was sent to Ratnagiri from where we nabbed Maingade on Sunday,” Maria said.