Bennett Rebello was living with woman when 16-year-old joined them

Locals say his adopted daughter was brought home to take care of the pregnant woman at his Vakola residence

Musician Bennett Rebello, who was killed and his body pieces thrown into Mithi, had allegedly got his 'adopted' daughter Aradhya Patil home to take care of a pregnant woman (named Mahek) he was living with, his neighbours told mid-day on Wednesday. Rebello was allegedly killed by Aradhya and her boyfriend last month and his body, chopped into several pieces, was thrown into the Mithi River at different locations across Mumbai.

"We knew Mahek had been living with Rebello for quite some time. One day, I saw her with a baby bump and was shocked. I enquired about it and got to know that she wasn't married. A few weeks later, Ria (Aradhya) began living with them at Rebello's Vakola house. When asked, Rebello told me that she had come to take care of Mahek," said Laxmi Shinde who lives in the same locality in Vakola as Rebello.

Shinde said she had also warned Rebello against "getting girls home" after he and his wife separated but "he stopped talking to me after that." Dr Sharad Sharma, a local doctor whom Rebello often visited, said that "he had started having some knee problems owing to age."

The musician would often leave home with a guitar in the evening for shows and return late, the doctor said. "One night, Rebello came to me saying that the shutter to his premises won't open. We called a local hardware shop and got it opened. We saw four people including Ria with two boys and a girl inside. They had locked the gate from inside," Dr Sharma said. Another neighbour Jamaklal Jain, a scrap dealer in Vakola, added, "This incident had pushed Rebello to scold Ria. All the neighbours had witnessed the incident."

Foul smell
A few days after the incident, on the evening of November 29, neighbours began to get a stench. "We did not know where it was coming from," he said.

One more bag found

The crime branch team has fished out one more plastic bag containing a human thigh on Wednesday afternoon. "With the help of Kallu Ambulance, we began search operations at 8 am and traced a plastic bag containing a thigh from behind the Kabristan in Kurla at 12.30 pm. This could be Rebello's body part thrown into the Mithi River from Kurla-CST Road," said a Crime Branch officer. The search operation to locate the fourth bag carrying the torso of the deceased is on.

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