Mumbai New Year Eve murder: Police oppose bail plea of accused, cite CCTV footage as evidence

The Mumbai Police, while opposing the bail plea of Diya Padalkar (19), booked for the murder of her friend Janhvi Kukreja (19), has stated that CCTV camera footage shows her trying to slip out in a hurry from the building in Khar where the incident took place on New Year’s Eve.

Padalkar was arrested in January, along with friend Shree Jogdhankar (22), for the murder of their friend Kukreja.

Padalkar had filed a bail application before the court earlier this month through her lawyer Ashok Mishra after the police filed a chargesheet in the case in March.

Opposing the plea before court on Friday, the Khar police said that among the evidence is the CCTV camera footage of the building where their common friend stayed, which was the venue of the party on December 31.

“The CCTV footage does not show Padalkar behaving like an innocent person. It indicates a prior knowledge on her part about the incident and an urgency to slip out of the building in a hurry,” the police reply stated. The footage also shows Jogdhankar leaving the building with his clothes torn, it added.

Alleging that the deceased was upset with the intimacy she had witnessed between the accused at the party, the police claimed that Padalkar, Jogdhankar and Kukreja got into a scuffle, leading to the murder.

Kukreja’s body was found on the ground floor of the building with severe injuries. Both Padalkar and Jogdhankar had also sustained injuries. According to witnesses, Padalkar had then said that she did not remember how she had sustained the injury on her lip.

The police further claimed that bloodstains found on Jogdhankar’s clothes and the bedsheet and pillow cover on which Padalkar lay down
after the incident were of Kukreja’s.

Padalkar, in her bail plea, has said that the bedsheet and pillow were contaminated to link her to the crime. The police said that there is no evidence to show that Kukreja had gone to the room with Padalkar while she was bleeding.

It added that while Padalkar had claimed that she had fallen off the stairs to explain the injured lip, there was no explanation why her hairband and earrings were found on different floors of the building. “Whether the nature of injuries were caused by a fall cannot be concluded at this stage,” the police said.

Padalkar had claimed in her plea that she was linked to the case without any evidence and the chargesheet has not defined her role in the offence.

She had said that as per the chronology of the events mentioned in the chargesheet, she was on the terrace or sleeping in the party organiser’s room at the alleged time of the murder.

The police also opposed the bail plea stating that all attendees of the party are friends or acquaintances of Padalkar and if released, she could tamper with evidence.

Padalkar and Jogdhankar remain in jail after the court had earlier rejected their bail applications they moved before the was chargesheet filed.