Mumbai:
Cops now have reason to believe that late international model Viveka Babajee, who took her own life in 2010, may have been driven to suicide over Simrin Sud's growing closeness to her then boyfriend, financial stockbroker and socialite Gautam Vora.
Police sources suspect that Simrin, an accused in the murder of bookie and film producer Karan Kakkad, could well be the reason behind the unexpected suicide by the well-known ramp model. Babajee had been found hanging from the ceiling in her Pali Hill apartment in June, 2010.
In fresh statements given by Vijay Palande to the Crime Branch, the 37-year-old Simrin was allegedly involved in a relationship with Vora, who had allegedly broken Babajee's heart, driving her to take her own life in 2010.
Palande, prime accused in Kakkad's murder, on Thursday corroborated Simrin's version of the nature of their relationship, admitted that she and Palande had been married. He revealed that he had wed Simrin (alias Sapna) in an Arya Samaj ceremony back in 1999.
While he was serving time in jail in 2005, Palande learnt of Simrin's affair with Vora. However, he insisted yesterday that his relationship with Simrin was not affected by the affair. The Mumbai Crime Branch will be summoning Vora to determine if he was acquainted with Palande and if he was helping Simrin financially. They also plan to probe if Vora was another of Palande's targets.
'Just friends'Babajee's personal diary, which was confiscated by the Khar police station after her death, has a last entry made by her, allegedly mentioning Vora's culpability in her death. Three weeks after Babajee's death, the Khar police opted to shut the case and gave a clean chit to Vora, who had claimed that Babajee had been nothing more than 'just a friend'. Speaking to the Amboli police over the phone yesterday, Vora also passed off his relationship with Simrin as a casual friendship.
An officer from the Crime Branch said, on condition of anonymity, "Palande has been changing his statements and also contradicting them. So if he reveals that Simrin had an affair with Vora, we are going to conduct investigations to authenticate them." Babajee's family spokesperson Dale Bhagwagar, who has been handling the media on behalf of her family, said, "According to Babajee's mother, everything between Vora and her daughter was fine.
Her mother had told me that Babajee had discussed marriage with Vora and that they had even matched their horoscopes. But something must have gone terribly wrong when Vora visited her one night in June 2010. Because the next day, Babajee's body was found hanging from the ceiling fan in her flat," he added. "Only Vora can reveal if Babajee's death was related to any other relationship he was involved in," Bhagwagar concluded. Vora was unavailable for comment.