Missing Mumbai bank VP murdered, says detained man; motive unclear

Siddharth Sanghavi

Siddharth Sanghavi, vice-president of a prominent private bank in south Mumbai, has been murdered, said a 20-year-old who has been detained by the Navi Mumbai Crime Branch.

The suspect, Sarfaraz Shaikh, tried to mislead the police initially, but in his latest statement, he told the police he had dumped the body at Haji Malang, Kalyan. A team was immediately sent to the spot, but did not find anything. Search operations are still on. As mid-day reported on September 9, Sanghavi went missing on September 5, when he was last seen leaving his office building at Kamla Mills. He never got home to his flat at Ridge Apartments at Malabar Hill.

This paper highlighted how the cops zeroed in on Shaikh as the suspect when he switched on the victim's phone for five minutes on September 6, allowing them to trace him.

According to a highly placed source, Sanghavi was murdered while he was walking towards his car on the third-storey parking lot in his office building. Cops found bloodstains there and at the place his car was found - at Sector 11 in Kopar Khairane, just 400 metres from Shaikh's residence. Sanghavi's car key was also found with Shaikh. There was also blood on the rear car seat. Cops are matching the blood with DNA samples from the victim's parents for identification, while the body has been sent for post-mortem.

Siddharth Sanghavi never got home to Ridge Apartments at Malabar Hill on Sept 5. Pic/Bipin Kokate

Mumbai Police remain tight-lipped about the case, but sources said that the names of senior officials from the bank were brought up in the suspect's statement. Cops are not sure about the motive for the crime.

"Shaikh was working at a fabrication workshop at the Kamla Mills compound. At first, he said he is a driver, then he told us that he is a carpenter. Initially, he said he tried to rob Sanghavi, but killed the banker when he retaliated. He claimed he had dumped the body in Airoli creek. But on cross-questioning him, he could not narrate the entire sequence of events," said a Navi Mumbai officer.

"Upon further interrogation, he revealed that a month ago, a woman from the same bank claimed she was Sanghavi's wife and she wanted him dead. But when we showed him a picture of Sanghavi's wife, he said he had met some other woman," said a highly placed source.

Also Read: Mumbai: HDFC Vice President goes missing under mysterious circumstances

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