A scar, a mole, an Om tattoo: Body signs that blew Hemant Modi’s cover
Police tracked murder accused Hemant Modi, who jumped parole in 2014 and became Bollywood actor ‘Spandan Modi’, to a bungalow on the border of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar where he was filming a Gujarati soap. He is now back where he belonged 12 years ago: to Mehsana District Jail.
In the years that followed, Hemant Modi had become, first, Twinkle Mukund Dave, and then Spandan Modi – the name he used to enter the theatre scene in Gujarat. (Photo enhanced using AI) On May 21, murder convict Hemant Nagindas Purshottamdas Modi was put back behind bars at Mehsana District Jail, from where he had walked out on parole 12 years ago, and vanished.
The Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) of Ahmedabad City Police arrested Bollywood actor Spandan Modi in Ahmedabad after establishing that he was, in fact, Hemant Modi – Prisoner No. 31146 who had been released from Mehsana Jail on the orders of the High Court in July 2014.
In the years that followed, Hemant Modi had become, first, Twinkle Mukund Dave, and then Spandan Modi – the name he used to enter the theatre scene in Gujarat, and gradually make his way to Gujarati serials and films and, finally, to Bollywood.
He acted in supporting roles in films headlined by Amitabh Bachchan, Mohanlal, Aamir Khan, Ranveer Singh, and Sonakshi Sinha, and even entered the OTT platform space, appearing in the Emraan Hashmi starrer ‘Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web’ on Netflix.
So how did police finally recognise the man who had gone unrecognised by millions for years?
It was difficult to identify Hemant Modi not just because of the time that had passed between his escape, when he was 42 years old, and his recapture, by which time he had turned 54 – but also because he had changed his appearance over time, police said.
What helped officers though, were the identification markers on his body – descriptive features that had been recorded in official prison documents, and which matched with those found on the actor Spandan Modi.
The first of these identifiers, police officers said, was an Om symbol, etched in the traditional (hand-poked) tattooing method on the inside of his right arm. The tattoo, officers said, is outward facing, and is located one-third of the way between his elbow and his wrist.
The second identifier was a mole in the centre of Hemant Modi’s chest, police said. Police found the mole on Spandan Modi’s chest too, about half an inch to the right of his solar plexus.
The third descriptive identifier was a scar – the reminder of an old wound on Hemant Modi’s left wrist. Investigators confirmed this sign too when they found the clear scar on the outside of Spandan Modi’s wrist.
And how was Hemant Modi apprehended?
“We first tracked him down to a bungalow near Vaishnodevi circle where he was filming a Gujarat serial on May 20. But we did not think it appropriate to detain him there,” an officer of the Ahmedabad Crime Branch told The Indian Express. “So we let him go back home, and then approached him.”
Police officers said that Hemant Modi had behaved in a confused manner, asking why police had come to his house.
“But later, when confronted with the facts, he admitted that he knew that we knew who he was – but had wanted to be sure that we had gone there in relation to the old (murder) case, and not something unrelated,” an officer who had investigated the case, said.
On June 16, 2005, Hemant Modi, his brother Sachin, and five others were booked at Naroda police station in Ahmedabad for the murder of one Narendra alias Nano Yashwant Kamble the previous day.
On August 27, 2008, the trial court convicted all seven accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment.
Hemant Modi was first incarcerated at Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad. Later, following an incident of violence inside the jail, he was transferred to Mehsana District Jail, where he remained until 2014. He was declared a parole jumper on July 25, 2014.
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