Mumbai:
Three years after TV executive Neeraj Grover was brutally killed, a Mumbai court has found Maria Susairaj, a small-time Kannada actress, not guilty of murder, but of destroying evidence. She has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment. A sentence she has already served during trial. This means that she shall walk free.
Grover was killed in Maria's apartment in suburban Mumbai in May 2008 by her former fiancé, Emile Jerome Mathew, a Navy Lieutenant, and his body was allegedly chopped into several pieces, put into two bags by Mathew and Maria, who then drove to Manor in neighbouring Thane district, where they burnt the body to dispose it.
The judge accepted that Mathew had killed Neeraj in a fit of jealousy after finding him at Maria's flat. But it was not pre-planned murder, and so Mathew was indicted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and of destroying evidence. He has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Maria's confession: • I knew Neeraj Grover since March 2008. I had met him every day from April 29, 2008 till the date of the incident
• On May 6 at about 10.30 pm, Neeraj called me and said he wanted to meet me. I said I could not, as I was tired
• At about 11 pm, when I came out from the house of my neighbour after taking a bath there, I saw Neeraj at the door of my house. I had introduced him to my neighbour friend Mayuri
• At 11.30 pm, I got a call from Emile Jerome in Cochin, whom I intended to marry. I told him that Neeraj was at home. My phone battery died and Emile called on Neeraj's phone and talked to me
• I told Emile that Neeraj was acting very funny that day. He asked whether he should come to Mumbai. I told him that after dinner Neeraj would leave
• Neeraj said he had some work in Malad in the morning and asked me if he could stay in my house. I said that it was okay
• On May 7, 2008, at about 7.30 am, the doorbell rang. I found Emile at the door. He directly entered the house and I followed him inside. Neeraj also woke up. Neeraj knew that I would be getting married to Emile and recognized him because he had seen our photographs
• Emile started raining blows on Neeraj. Both started fighting with each other. I could not control them
• I saw that Emile had stabbed Neeraj with a knife from my kitchen. I tried to hold the knife. I sustained an injury on my right palm
• Emile shut my mouth and also threatened to kill me. He threw me on the bed and raped me. He never put the knife down
• After 11 am, Emile dragged the body of Neeraj into the bathroom. Then he told me to purchase bags, curtains, a knife and some room freshener
• When I came back to my house, I handed over the knife to him. He asked me not to come into the bathroom and to instead clean the hall, which was blood-stained
• He asked me if any of my friends had a car. At about 3 pm, I called my friend Kiran who stays at Four Bungalows, Andheri (W)
• By that time, Emile had chopped the body into pieces. Then Emile and I went to Kiran's house to collect the car. We took the car and went to a petrol pump in Lokhandwala. Emile bought two plastic cans and filled one of them with five litres of petrol. We then came back home
• He (Emile) put all the pieces of the body into two big bags and put it in the car
• He asked me to drive. I was driving along the Western Express Highway. I drove the car on to a kachcha road
• It was around 7 to 7.30 pm. He took out all the bags from the car. I went to give him the cans of petrol and then came and sat in the car. He poured the petrol over the bags and set it on fire with a lighter. Then we came back to my house. Emile started removing the blood stains
• At about 10.30 pm, a friend of Neeraj, Nishant, called me to say that Neeraj could not be found. He and one Deepak came to my building and asked me to join them to lodge a police complaint. I went with them to Malad police station. I made a false statement, as directed by Emile
• All the while, he (Emile) was threatening me not to tell anything to the police otherwise he would kill me and also kill himself
• I say that Emile killed Neeraj in front of me