TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Abhijeet Korgaonkar, elder brother-in-law of Pratima Naik, the prime accused in the daring Vasco double murder, was arrested on Wednesday and stolen gold ornaments valued at over Rs 10 lakh recovered from him.
The police brass claims the murders were inspired by television crime serials and solely planned by Pratima, the prime accused, almost a fortnight before executing the plan.
Late Monday night, the special investigation team of the Goa Police had arrested Pratima for killing her mother-in-law Usha Naik and elder sister-in-law Dr Neha Naik. The accused, who apparently had inflicted minor injuries on herself, tried to hoodwink the police by portraying it as a case of armed robbery.
Briefing journalists on Wednesday, Inspector General of Police Sunil Garg said the team also recovered a mobile phone from Pratima’s possession, which was purchased by her accomplice Korgaonkar, to exclusively use for the crime. In addition to this, a two-wheeler used by Korgaonkar to carry the envelope containing stolen jewellery and cash, and sleep-inducing powder was also seized for investigation. The sleep-inducing powder, sources said, was procured from a pharmacy in Baina without any prescription.
“On the fateful day, Pratima served food to the victims and milk laced with sleep inducing powder before the midnight of January 30. While Usha, dozed off after watching TV on the ground floor of the duplex flat, Neha slept on the first floor. The accused then strangulated Usha with a rope and later smothered Neha with a pillow,” Garg narrated, while disclosing the modus operandi and tagging the case as ‘challenging’, though the police had zeroed in on Pratima on day one of the crime.
“We knew she was the murderer as the investigation pointed out to various loopholes. But we had to confirm the findings. She was arrested within 48 hours of the crime,” the IGP stated.
The police investigation also discovered that Pratima was a socialite and since she was fond of gold ornaments she had stolen her in-laws’ jewellery in the past as well.
During her interrogation, she confessed that the murder was a result of her frustration as she was harassed by her mother-in-law and her freedom was curtailed. “She (Pratima) was discriminated in the house compared to her older sister-in-law. Moreover, Pratima’s movements outside the house were restricted and she was ill-treated by Usha,” the IPS officer, quoting from the confession, said.
Garg added that soon after murdering the two women, Pratima had lobbed a parcel containing gold jewellery and cash to Korgaonkar, whom she had already planted outside the house post at 1 am. Though he was unaware about the murders that night, he has been charged with the same offences including criminal conspiracy.
It was only at about 4:20am that the neighbours alerted the police control room about the murder after Pratima raised an alarm. The police have also ruled out Pratima’s theory that two gas agency personnel had come to the house and the house keys were missing since then.
“She is a hard core criminal. She had planned the murder thoroughly. Before raising an alarm about the murder, she had rubbed chili powder on her face and hit her head with a wooden stick. We knew the story she narrated was fake but we waited till we had concrete proof,” Garg said, as he applauded the team of Superintendent of Police Kartik Kashyap, South Goa SP Shekhar Prabhudesai and Vasco police team members for cracking the murder.
