Virar murder: Who is Pinto Sharma? Calm Buddha or master of hell?

Pintoo Sharma and Ganesh Koladkar. Illustration/Uday Mohite

On a Wednesday afternoon, a narrow lane near Vakola market appears deep in post-lunch slumber. The quietude is unnerving, given that this neighbourhood is home to an alleged murderer. It's here that stock trader Pintoo Sharma, 42, lived for close to 25 years, before he was arrested on January 22 for the murder of Ganesh Koladkar, 58, a resident of Mira Road who ran a printing press.

The Arnala Coastal police allege that Sharma's evil act included cutting up Koladkar's body with a hacksaw to separate flesh from bones, before he flushed parts of it down the toilet, and flung the bones and skull into the Bhayander creek.

Pintoo Sharma

The police are looking into a possible dispute over money. A few months into knowing him, Sharma, a share broker, lent Koladkar Rs 1 lakh, and managed to receive Rs 40,000 back. Koladkar kept him hanging for the remainder. When Sharma invited him on January 16 to a rented apartment on the sixth floor of Bachraj Paradise in Global City, Virar West, he petitioned him to clear the loan, but Koladkar said he needed the money to get married. A jibe about his age annoyed Koladkar, who prepared to leave, and when Sharma tried to stop him, he fell and hit his head against the floor.

Ganesh Koladkar

To rid the evidence of death in his home, Sharma told the police, he hatched a spontaneous plan to dispose of the body. The police however, are unsure whether the murder was planned and Sharma had invited Koladkar with the intention of teaching him a lesson. Sharma is believed to have returned to this Virar home over the next few days to dispose of the remains, and would have gone untraced had residents of Bachraj not complained of a chocked pipeline leading sanitation workers to the septic tank where they found bits of flesh. Yet, this gruesome act is not one that his Vakola neighbours would have associated with Sharma. If anything, they'd put him on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Unwilling to reveal his name, a neighbour says he knows little about the Sharmas - wife Purnima and two sons aged 11 and 17 - who live in a first floor room. "Aside from pleasantries, they never interacted with us. Their children also do not come downstairs to play with our kids. We do not know what profession Sharma is into, but he never had any dispute with the neighbours." Another adds, "Sometimes, we'd get annoyed if his motorcycle was parked in the way, in the compound. We'd ring his doorbell, lose our cool but he'd never retort or get aggressive. Instead, he would bring the motorcycle keys, shift the vehicle and quietly go back home without uttering a word."

The locked door to Pintoo Sharma's home in Vakola. His wife and children were at the home, but refused to speak to mid-day. Pic/Datta Kumbhar; (right) An official carries a bag with remains of flesh believed to be Koladkar's found from the Virar building's septic tank. Pic/Hanif Patel

News for crime
In police custody for over 10 days, Sharma is also being interrogated for another case, that of Arvind Ranade, an LIC development officer, a resident of IC Colony in Borivli, who went missing on February 21, 2018, and is suspected to have met the same fate as Koladkar at a Naigaon flat that Sharma rented. After Ranade's relatives heard of Koladkar's case, they approached the Valiv police.

The police claim that Sharma's morning ritual involved scanning English newspapers for crime stories, and that he held particular interest in the murder of API Ashwini Bidre-Gore, who the police allege was hacked to death by her lover and fellow policeman Abhay Kurundkar in 2017, and whose body is yet to be traced.

The neighbourhood where Pintoo Sharma lived in a chawl with his wife and two children. Pic/Datta Kumbhar

In the past, they allege, he also watched online videos on how the British tortured Indians, and tricks to face third-degree torture while in police custody. They say, he has tried his best to deflect efforts of a psychiatrist who was brought in for custodial interrogation. "Yaar, tum dande maar lo, lekin psychiatrist ko bolo yahan se chala jaye," he is believed to have told the police.

The son of a BMC employee, Sharma, says the police, has a diploma that qualifies him to be a Sanitary Inspector, from the All India Institute of Local Self Government, Barfiwala Road, Andheri West. That he has a certification course in Anatomy and Physiology of the Human Body from University of Mumbai, is already known. He pursued these courses not to better hack a human body, but to land a job in the BMC like his father. Sharma was also pursuing a course in Phonology from the university.

Police speak to neighbours at Bachraj paradise, Virar, where Koladkar was allegedly murdered by Sharma

"He has a sharp mind and does not get easily disturbed. Calculative while talking, he evaluates each word before speaking. He seems to have sound knowledge of share trading and says he can make between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000 per month," says an officer privy to the investigation, adding that the suspect is eager to teach cops share market tricks.

What has stumped the police is that Sharma doesn't have a social media account. While he is known to have two cell phones, a basic handset and a smartphone, the police are yet to recover the smartphone.

Chances of misdirection
The police claim Sharma - who met Koladkar at the latter's Mira Road printing press a year ago - created a fake account in the name of Vanita Agarwal on a matrimonial site to chat with the deceased. "The intention, says the accused, was to 'prank' Koladkar." But, cops are taking all of Sharma's statements with a pinch of salt. They say it has been tough interrogating him, as he often tries to derail them in conversation. When nothing else works, the police admit get harsh with him, but mid-way Sharma says, 'Okay! Stop! If you beat me, I won't utter a word'. "He has no remorse for what he has done with Koladkar and the body," an officer says, adding, "He is willing to confess to his crime in court."

Another police official
adds, "He never gives us straight answers. They are pre-decided. It seems he has intended not to reveal the actual reason behind the Koladkar's brutal murder." "When I opened his [Koladkar's] chest, I saw a thick accumulation of fat around his heart. I am sure he would have died in the next couple of years because his heart could not have been functioning well," Sharma is said to have told the interrogators describing how he carved the body, in what they believe was a deviation tactic. When asked if he was afraid while cutting the mortal remains, he is believed to have said, "[At] that time, I had become a motor who followed the commands of my brain."

A family man?
Sharma has shown no remorse for the act. Not even when retelling the most gory bits of how he beheaded Koladkar, not knowing whether his victim was unconscious or dead, or even the details of how he chopped up his body into chunks in order to flush them down the toilet. But, his family has had an entirely different effect on him.

Sharma has told the police that he fell in love with Purnima when he was just 14 years old. Purnima was a distant relative who lived in the same neighbourhood, and the two got married when Sharma turned 24. "He never looked at other girls," one officer says he told them. Aside from Purnima, who visited the police station once to hand him a few change of clothes, no relative has visited Sharma.

"Two days after Sharma's arrest, Purnima reached the Arnala Coastal police station with her lawyer's visiting card wanting the contact number of the owner of the flat in Virar where the incident took place," says a source, who added that she has not visited Sharma after this day, not even when he was produced in court. But, it is familial bonds alone that manage to reduce Sharma to tears.

Police say, he cried once inside custody when his sons did not visit the police station to meet him. Sharma's father Jaikishan married a second time after his first wife (whose son Sharma is) died. The police believe that the denial of paternal love during childhood could have affected his behaviour. Yet, he told the police, "If my father had been caught in a case like this, I would have been camping at the police station to see him every day... But my sons have not bothered [to visit me]." "After saying this, he burst into tears," the police official says. Sharma is expected to be produced in Vasai court today, with the police demanding an extension of custody.

Catch up on all the latest Mumbai news, crime news, current affairs, and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates