Artist to court: Cops unable to solve crime, falsely implicating me in wife’s murder

Currently out on bail, Chintan during a recent hearing submitted his written statement under section 313 of the Criminal Procedure Court, when an accused is given an opportunity to put across his defence. In the four-page statement, Chintan has submitted that both he and Hema were internationally acclaimed artists and they married after falling in love.

Later on, he said that the relationship was marred by bickering “…because of her extravagant expenditures, conflict of views and different life styles so much so that it became torturous to cohabit together and therefore I was compelled to file a petition for divorce on the ground of cruelty in the year 2010,” the statement says.

It adds that the family court had granted a decree of divorce in 2014 in his favour. It said he had paid Hema Rs 16 lakh as per the court’s order and was in the process of paying monthly alimony.

He claimed that four days before her death, too, he had paid Rs 2 lakh towards maintenance.

Further, in Chintan’s statement, he has said that he and Hema had purchased a home in Juhu together but since 2011 he was mostly residing in Delhi. He has said that he would stay in the house when he would come to Mumbai as it also belonged to him. “During my stay, I used to ensure that there was no occasion for us to have any altercations, quarrels or disputes” the statements added, and that he usually confined himself to his bedroom. Chintan has further said he would never call outsiders home to avoid any inconvenience to Hema and that they would talk on limited aspects. Chintan’s statement goes on to give details of his visit to Mumbai between December 1 to 8, 2015, when he was in the city to attend the court hearing.

Chintan further said that on December 12, 2015, his house help called and informed him that Hema and her lawyer were missing. He said that he immediately left for Mumbai and while at the airport, was asked by a police officer to go over to the crime branch. He said once he reached, he was interrogated for nine days and on December 22, 2015, when he was leaving the crime branch office after interrogation, he was apprehended.

“Without asking me a word, I was handcuffed and was pushed into a dark lockup. I was then charged for conspiring the murder of my wife Hema and her lawyer Mr Bhambhani. I was beaten with sticks, belts, fist blows. I was made to stand on my toes for hours and was kept starving in order to compel me to confess to the crime. However, I did not break down,” his statement says.

He has said that he was also threatened that his artist friends, family members including his father would be arrested for assisting in the murder if he told anybody about the assault.

The police had claimed that Chintan had conspired to murder Hema and Bhambhani through the absconding accused Vidyadhar Rajbhar, who worked as a fabricator for him and Hema. Chintan has said in his statement that while Rajbhar had come to meet him on December 2, 2015 in Jaipur, he said that he had not called him nor had any work with him, and had not met him.

“Since police were unable to crack the case, taking advantage of the fact that matrimonial dispute was pending between me and Hema, I have been made a target and evidence has been fabricated to implicate me. I am innocent and I have not committed any offence,” his statement says.