‘Sheer bad luck’: Police on murder of HDFC official who was stabbed 14 times

Ever since 39-year-old HDFC Bank executive Siddharth Sanghavi went missing on September 5, there have been questions surrounding what may have happened to him. On Monday, the police found Sanghavi’s body in Kalyan and 20-year-old contract labourer Sarfaraz Shaikh confessed to murdering Sanghavi. There has been a lot of speculation surrounding Sanghavi’s death, but a top police official dismissed the conspiracy theories and told HT that Sanghavi was a victim of “sheer bad luck.”

The official, who is privy to the investigation, said that the banker was an “incidental target”. Over the past three years, Shaikh had worked in the Kamala Mills compound as a fabricator on more than one occasion and was familiar with the layout, including details like the guards’ timings and the location of CCTV cameras. The police believe he had worked on a project in the HDFC Bank’s office.

The official said that Sanghavi was one of three executives whom Shaikh had selected as possible targets (he refused to identify the other two). Had Sanghavi not come down when he did on September 5, Shaikh may have gone after one of his other choices. “He (Sanghavi) just happened to be at that place when Sheikh was on the prowl for a prospective victim,” said the official.

Following Sanghavi’s disappearance on September 5 and the filing of a missing person complaint, over half a dozen of persons, including some HDFC bank employees as well as Sanghavi’s family and acquaintances were questioned by the police. Shaikh was not the police’s first choice for murderer and even when he confessed, the police probed other possibilities. “It was hard to trust his [Shaikh’s] confession as we had suspected the involvement of more than one person in the murder,” the official said.

Shaikh, who lives in Kopar Khairane, was brought in for questioning more than once by the Navi Mumbai police and was eventually arrested on September 9, when the police got all the details from him, including the location of Sanghavi’s body in Kalyan. The official said Shaikh was questioned by three separate sets of interrogators. Two of the police’s top interrogators, Inspectors Sukhlal Varpe and Dinesh Kadam, were drawn from other police stations (Worli and Byculla) to assist the officers at NM Joshi Marg police station. “This was done in order to find out discrepancies, if any, in Shaikh’s narration of the events separately before the three teams. However, Shaikh’s narration remained the same before all. Only then we were convinced that he was the solitary assassin and produced him in the court,” the official told HT.

The interrogations established that Shaikh had been waiting for one of his three targets to appear in the third floor parking lot, which is for HDFC Bank employees. “The parking lot was empty and deserted by then [Sanghavi left office around 7.56pm] and Shaikh took advantage of the situation. It was sheer bad luck for Sanghvi to be there at that time,” said the official.

Shaikh told his interrogators that Sanghavi tried to resist and screamed when Shaikh got hold of him from behind and put a knife to Sanghavi’s throat. “His neck was slit when he moved his head while putting up resistance,” said the official, adding that a panicked Shaikh went on to stab Sanghavi 14 times. While being stabbed, Sanghavi tried to get away, and this left the blood stains in the parking lot that the police would find a few days after his disappearance.

The police believe Sanghavi was killed between 8pm and 8.30 pm, after which Shaikh waited for over three hours because he didn’t want to run the risk of being caught in traffic. There is CCTV footage of Shaikh driving Sanghavi’s car out of the parking lot at around 11.20pm. “Also he was aware that people at Haji Malang would be sleeping when he dumped the body,” explained the official. Shaikh would then abandon the car, which had the knife that he’d used to kill Sanghavi, near his residence in Kopar Khairane.

During his interrogation, Shaikh owned up to the crime and categorically denied anyone else’s involvement. He told the police that he had to pay off the loan for a bike he had bought. Unaware of how the legal system works, when Shaikh was presented before the magistrate on Monday, he confessed his crime in court. “He thought he would probably be asked what he had been asked before—if anyone else was involved,” the official said.

The police have been granted custody of Shaikh till September 19 by the court and the investigation into Sanghavi’s death is still underway.

First Published: Sep 12, 2018 01:21 IST