Mumbai Crime: ‘Killer wife, paramour had a plan B in place’

Kajal Shah (in yellow) outside Killa court. File pic

Kajal Shah and her paramour Hitesh Jain, both accused of killing Shah's husband Kamalkant Shah by slow poisoning, had prepared a plan B in case Arsenic and Thallium did not work, sources in the crime branch said. This was revealed when cops were scanning the search history of the accused. "The history clearly indicates searches for various chemicals. The accused Jain had good knowledge of pharmacy. This indicates that they had a plan B in place," an officer said.

Mumbai police's crime branch, which is investigating the case, presented the accused before the Killa court on Monday and sought extension of their custody. Cops said so far they have studied around 45 per cent of the data retrieved from the phone and found suspicious activity. "He [Jain] was being questioned about these searches but he is not cooperating as he knows that his custody will come to an end," an officer from Unit 9 of the crime branch said.

Officers added that the search history also showed that they researched about the destruction of evidence by reading about various cases where the accused were freed due to lack of hard evidence. "They knew that someday they would get caught and hence they studied about everything. Now, it is difficult to find direct evidence against them," he added.

Cops also mentioned that Jain's mobile phone, which he had earlier claimed to have dumped on the Mumbai-Nashik Highway, is yet to be discovered. They also added that Jain is now mentioning some other location to mislead investigators. The crime branch also claimed that the accused have confessed to killing Kamalkant's mother Sarla Devi, who died on August 13, and added that this, too, needed to be investigated.

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Other side

Advocate Girish Kulkarni, representing Shah, stressed that Sarla Devi's death was a natural one and claimed that the cops did not verify the facts with the hospital before making such claims. "Why did the family not make any claim after the death of their mother in August? Because they knew that it was natural death," he told the court.

"The police is seeking extension on the same ground every time from the first remand, saying that the phone has not been recovered. But the cops have not even visited the highway to attempt to recover the phone yet. So, they have no ground to seek further custody," said Advocate Chandan Singh Shekhawat for Jain.

Speaking on the crime branch's argument about examining data retrieved from the accused's phones, Shekhawat added, "It took 11 days to read 45 per cent of the data. They [cops] will take at least 20 more days to study the remaining data. They do not require the custody of my client for this as he can be questioned about it inside the prison with court's order."

Other possibilities

The crime branch also said that they are suspecting the involvement of a third person who either helped the accused poison the deceased or helped them destroy the evidence. Advocate Kulkarni, however, said that there was a cook who used to serve food to everyone in the family. "Heavy metal blood test showed that even my client has a high level of those poisons. Yet, the police have not recorded the statement of the cook who had access to all their food," he said. The court, after hearing both sides, extended the custody till December 14.