Artist Chintan Upadhyay at Borivali Court in Mumbai. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)IN JAIL for the double murders of artist Hema Upadhyay and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani, an accused told the Dindoshi sessions court on Tuesday that the police had forced him to give a confessional statement by detaining his parents.
Pradeep Rajbhar, who the police claimed had made a confession before a magistrate in March 2016, had retracted it soon after. The bodies of Hema and Bhambhani were found in a nullah in Kandivali on December 11, 2015, packed in two cardboard boxes.
On Tuesday, Rajbhar told the court through a handwritten plea that the police had detained his parents and threatened to implicate them in the case if he did not give a confession, claiming to be involved in the crime along with the other accused, including Hema’s husband, artist Chintan Upadhyay.
“I am in prison for the past three years for a crime that I did not commit. I am being brought to the court and taken back to Thane jail for the last three years. The trial has not yet begun. I was put under pressure and made to give a false statement when I had nothing to do with the crime. My co-accused have also been falsely implicated,” Rajbhar told the court.
