<br>The spine-chilling incident came to light late on Tuesday when the Kalachowki police were investigating the complaint that the widow, identified as Veena Prakash Jain, 55, was missing.
The police swung into action and arrested the victim’s daughter Rimple P. Jain in connection with the murder of her mother, though the exact motives behind the ghastly crime are not yet clear.
The deceased woman’s elder brother, Sureshkumar Phulchand Porwal, 60, had filed the complaint late on Tuesday night after Rimple refused to let his son (her cousin) meet her mother.
After Porwal’s complaint when the police team reached the Jains’ first floor home in Ibrahim Kasam Chawl, Peru Compound in the Lalbaug area, Rimple initially did not permit them to enter.
However, the police team sensed a stench emanating from the home and after some tough words, they finally gained entry to the home and launched a search.
The police team encountered a sight straight out of a horror film – they found big and small pieces of Veena’s body, wrapped in plastic bags and stored in the cupboard and other places.
The murder is believed to have been committed sometime after the noon of November 26, 2022, and her body, in bits and pieces, was recovered around midnight last night.
"The body pieces were in an advanced state of decomposition, there was a deathly stench in the entire home, maggots and insects crawling around the place… We immediately summoned the forensic team to investigate the full home and sent the victim’s body to KEM Hospital for an autopsy," said an official, who is part of the probe team.
Early on Wednesday morning, the police detained Rimple, a prime suspect, for questioning in the matter even as the probe team recovered an electric marble cutter, a sickle and a knife – the murder weapons purportedly deployed to kill, chop and carve the woman’s body in the same premises.
This afternoon, the Kalachowki police have arrested Rimple Jain in connection with the ghastly killing and dismembering of her mother, though the police find it surprising that nobody in the congested neighbourhood had any inkling of the crime taking place right under their noses.
According to Porwal, for the past over three months, despite several attempts and visits, he could not meet his younger sister as each time Rimple made excuses like "she has gone out" or "she is resting".
The Jains had shifted from Virar in Palghar to Lalbaug in 2005 after the death of Prakash Jain, and Porwal used to support them with monthly financial help, said an official.
Officials said that Rimple, who appeared to be an educated woman, had claimed that her mother suffered a fall after which she brought her home where she died, and then made some other contradictory statements which aroused suspicions, leading to her arrest.
There is also speculation whether the accused woman is of a disturbed mind, particularly since she chose to keep everyone in the dark about her mother’s death/killing and chose to live with her body parts scattered in their home for so long.
(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: q.najmi@ians.in)
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