Wife, brother held for naval engineer’s murder

The body of the 28-year-old mechanical engineer was found on the terrace of his R block Navy Nagar residence on the morning of March 26. Reported missing a few days back, Digvijay Singh’s body was found with his throat slit in a gunny bag around 9.30 am by Anju’s sister.

Preliminary investigations, based on confessions of the accused, have revealed the wife was having an affair with the victim’s brother. A graduate, Ajay and his mother were visiting the couple. However, Ajay apparently used to come to Mumbai to meet Anju whenever Singh was out sailing.

To make sure they confronted Singh alone, Ajay took his mother and sister-in-law to a relative’s house in Malad on March 22. The next day, Singh came back from duty around 11 am. Ajay returned from Malad later in the afternoon.

Anju sent her nine-year-old daughter Pankudi to the neighbour’s house to watch television. Alone in the house, Anju held her husband while Ajay slit his throat. According to the remand application, the incident happened at around 1 pm.

Reconstructing the likely sequence of events thereafter, police say the couple cleaned up Singh’s blood that had splattered on the curtains, switch board and cupboard. They hid the body under the cot. Around seven in the evening, they apparently dragged the body into the lift, took it to the 15th floor and hid it under a water tank.

Anju went to Colaba police station on March 27 and filed a missing person’s report stating she did not know about her husband’s whereabouts.

According to police, Anju tried to poison her husband on Holi. Singh, however, suspected the meal he was eating had been laced with poison and allegedly beat up his wife.

The team that cracked the case was led by senior police inspector Mohan Akhlujkar, inspector K Rane, assistant police inspector L Sheikh, sub-inspectors Bhaskar Sawant and Dilip Bhamane.