Murder most foul — Couple found with heads smashed

Normally the workers took the keys of the shops in the morning from the Pandas. However, when the employees rang the bell of Panda’s home on Tuesday morning, there was no reply. They then informed the D N Nagar police, who reached the spot and discovered the couple had been murdered.

Police found the couple’s heads had been smashed with a heavy object, their faces distorted, and there were many stab injuries all over their bodies. close look revealed footprints and remains of bidis in the house. Police later found an iron rod, a big scissor and a fork shoved below the cupboard, all of which were smeared with blood. Police have seized the weapons as the instruments of murder.

Although the house had several storwells and cupboards, only one of them was found open. “Robbery is not the motive behind the killing. It seems the killers turned the cupboard upside down thinking they would thus send us on a false trail,” said an officer from D N Nagar police station.

However, Uday Shankar Pani, brother-in-law of Panda said: “The intrusion appears to be the job of professionals. I suspect there had to be more than three to four persons as Panda was himself well-built and could not have been overpowered by one person.”

The Panda family had come to Mumbai in 1943 from Behrampur, Orissa. Dr Ramchandra Panda was a noted homeopath and due to his trailblazing inventions in the field of alternative medicine got rich. The Pandas earlier lived at Malabar Hill, where Dariya Kumar was born.

After he got rich, Dr Panda shifted to the western suburbs and started buying properties. He also leased over 4,000 square yards of prime space at Versova in 1979 on an agreement of 999 years.

In 1983, he had sold over 2,000 of the 4,000 sq yards to builders and another 1,000 sq yards to Lokhandwala for construction. The Utkal Villa was built on the remaining 1,000 sq yards of the land. Dr Panda expired the same year, leaving the entire property to Panda. Many buildings have mushroomed in the area since.

Builders were believed to be eyeing the prime property and reportedly wished to buy the bungalow from Panda. However, Panda refused to sell the property as he wanted to start a bakery shop and an open-air restaurant in the space. The D N Nagar police are examining if there had been a dispute over this property.