Police say security guard planned to take advantage of the fact that the 25-year-old woman was alone at home, cut the electricity supply to her apartment, stole the keys to her flat and later used them to enter the house in an attempt to rape her
A day after a 25-year-old lawyer was found lying in a pool of blood in her apartment, officials from the Crime Branch Unit IV claim to have cracked the case after the arrest of the watchman of the building.
Ill-fated: (Inset) Pallavi Purkayastha was found dead by her boyfriend in her 16th floor apartment at Himalayan Heights, Wadala.u00a0Pics/Atul Kamble & Anita Anand
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During a press conference, Joint Commissioner of Police Himanshu Roy said that Sajjad Ahmed Mughal alias Pathan was arrested from Mumbai Central station as he was trying to flee to Kashmir.
Murder weapon: Joint Commissioner of Police Himanshu Roy displaysu00a0the knife that (below) Sajjad Ahmed Mughal alias Pathan used to kill Pallavi
After his arrest, Pathan confessed to the murder of Pallavi Purkayastha, who was found dead by her boyfriend Avik Sengupta in her 16th floor apartment at Himalayan Heights.
“It was learned during the course of interrogation that Pathan was sexually attracted to Pallavi and learning that she was alone at home tried to take advantage of her on Thursday,” said an official.
Giving details about the heinous crime, an official said that when Pallavi returned home from work from Excel Entertainment Pvt Ltd at 11 pm, she found there was no electricity supply in the house.
She immediately sent Avik, her live-in boyfriend a BBM message. He asked her to get in touch with the electrician, following which Pathan escorted the electrician to Pallavi’s home.
Power outage
“We learnt that it was Pathan who had purposely tripped the power supply to Pallavi’s home and then accompanied the electrician to her house where he managed to steal a set of keys.
The first time the electrician went to Pallavi’s place, he restored the power supply. However, at 1 am, she once again experienced a power outage and called the electrician again, who told her to disconnect all major electronic gadgets to avoid another outage,” said the official.
Rape attempt
The official added that Pathan then using the key that he had stolen earlier, sneaked into Pallavi’s home at 1.45 am and then tried to rape her at knifepoint.
When she resisted, he stabbed her around six times in the chest, abdomen, neck and face. Pathan had never expected Pallavi to offer stiff resistance and this enraged him. Being a national-level swimmer, Pallavi was extremely fit and was able to resist Pathan’s advances for a while before he stabbed her.
Pathan was working as a security guard for A H Enterprises.
The police officials said they were planning to take action against the security agency for showing negligence in noting Pathan’s accurate residential address.
Sketchy details
“The security agency had an address which mentioned details like Lal Chowk, Srinagar. It would have been very difficult to trace Pathan had he managed to get out of the city. This is carelessness on the agency’s part,” said Himanshu Roy.
The officials said they were planning to appoint a special public prosecutor soon, and seek a trial by a fast track court.
Addressing the media at the conference, Joint CP said, “It is the perversion of the highest order, heinous kind of perversion which deserves nothing but death sentence,” Roy said when asked about the motive of the murder.u00a0
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