Borivali court remanded Syed Muzzammil Hasan in judicial custody until November 3. (Representational Image)

A week after model Mansii Dixit was killed, Mumbai Police told a city court on Monday that 18-year-old photographer Syed Muzzammil Hasan, the accused in the case, murdered her when she rejected his sexual advances.

In its application seeking custody of Hasan, Bangur Nagar police said its investigation so far has revealed that on October 15, he called Dixit over to his home in Millat Nagar, Andheri West. According to police, Hasan, who had seen pictures of her on her social media accounts and liked them, had called her home to shoot pictures of her. “At his house, the accused demanded that the deceased have sex with him. When she refused, the accused strangled her with white shoe laces and a nylon rope and then hit her on the head with a wooden stool,” the police application stated.

Hasan then allegedly tied Dixit with more rope, stuffed her body in a large brown suitcase and booked a taxi on cab aggregator Ola to go to the airport. Police told the court that it had seized footage from CCTV cameras installed in the building showing Hasan exiting the premises with the suitcase.

Hasan is alleged to have told the taxi driver to take him to the Mindspace office complex in Malad West to drop the suitcase with a friend before proceeding to the airport. However, upon reaching Mindspace, the taxi driver became suspicious when Hasan promptly got out, left the suitcase on a corner of the road, walked across and hailed an auto, in which he left.

The taxi driver called the police control room to report the suspicious suitcase and then a police team tracked down Hasan to his home. Police also told the court that it had registered statements of the taxi driver as well as of the auto driver and another taxi driver who dropped Hasan home, apart from questioning other models who worked with Hasan.

The Borivali court remanded Hasan in judicial custody until November 3. His lawyer Sushan Kunjuraman argued that the incident points to a case of culpable homicide and not murder. Kunjuraman added that he would file for bail for Hasan next week.