Team Herald
MARGAO: The Rajasthan police on Thursday arrested four men, including a cook who worked for eye specialist Dr Nirwan Bharat who was found murdered at his Betalbatim residence on Wednesday. The murder was allegedly planned and executed by the four men, who fled with the victim’s car, mobile phone, cash and valuables. They were traced and nabbed at Bhilwara, Rajasthan, in a joint operation with the Colva police within 24 hours of the murder being reported.
The accused were identified as Odisha native Simanchal Parida, 31and his three accomplices Alok Singh,19 and Nagendra Kumar, 25, both from Alwar, Rajasthan, and Shahid Khan from Mumbai. Parida had been working as a cook for the doctor for the past few days, said the police. The Colva police have registered an offence against Section 302 of the IPC against the four men, and a police team has left for Rajasthan, to take them into custody.
Bharat, 27, an eye specialist working for a Nuvem-based clinic was found dead with his hands and legs tied, wedged into the bottom shelf of a wardrobe in his rented house at Nagvaddo, Betalbatim. Bharat hailed from Madhepura in Bihar.
A senior police officer told Herald that the cook, Parida, had gone missing after the murder, and from local sources, they learnt that he was seen in the red car belonging to the doctor.
“The primary motive for the murder was theft; the accused decamped with valuables and a significant amount of cash that the victim had withdrawn towards setting up his own eye clinic. We found out their whereabouts by tracing the doctor’s mobile phone, which was missing from his residence,” said the police officer. The four men have confessed to the gruesome crime, and will be interrogated separately as well, he added.
