As gory details emerge of the Mumbai murder that is uncannily similar to the shocking Shraddha Walkar case, the neighbour of the accused Manoj Sahani revealed that the 56-year-old avoided interactions with people. Speaking to news agency ANI, the man said that he wasn’t even aware of the accused’s name until the alleged murder was uncovered.
The residents felt a stench wafting from the area on Monday or Tuesday and were clueless about its origin. The man added that a tree cutter was recovered from the apartment in Geeta Nagar Phase 7, and there were no blood stains in the flat.
“He kept only to himself and didn’t mingle with the others. I didn’t even know his name…A foul smell – like that of a dead rat – started emanating on Monday morning or Tuesday evening. We didn’t imagine the source of it to be that flat, we had seen things like that only on TV,” the neighbour told ANI.
Sahani was arrested Wednesday for allegedly chopping up the body of his 32-year-old live-in partner Saraswati Vaidya in Mumbai’s Mira road area and has been sent to police custody till June 16 by a Thane court. According to the police, the murder may have taken place three days ago. Sahani was living with the decomposing body parts, police said.
The residents of J-wing in Geeta Aakashdeep Cooperative Housing Society contacted the police on Wednesday after noticing the foul smell emanating from flat number 704. The couple had been living on the seventh floor of the building in Mira Road for the past three years.
The chopped body parts were found dumped in utensils and buckets in the flat, and have been sent to JJ Hospital for further analysis, ANI quoted Jayant Bajbale, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), Mumbai, in a statement. An FIR has been registered in the case.
