Air hostess murder: Accused confesses to rape intent; gets 3-day police custody

A 40-year-old man accused of killing a flight attendant in Mumbai has confessed to wanting to rape her at knifepoint. He has been remanded in custody for three days.

MUMBAI: A metropolitan magistrate court at Andheri remanded 40-year-old Vikram Atwal, accused for the alleged killing of a 24-year-old flight attendant in her flat on Sunday, to three days’ police custody. Atwal was a member of the cleaning staff employed by NG Complex housing society in Marol, where the victim resided with her sister and a friend.

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On Tuesday, police informed the court that the accused had confessed he wanted to rape her at knifepoint. The police sought custody to conduct medical examinations on him to rule out the possibility of a sexual assault on the deceased completely and establish the exact sequence of events that led to the murder. The court granted the investigating team from Powai police Atwal’s custody till September 8.

Earlier, Atwal had confessed to the investigating team, that he occasionally cleaned the deceased’s bathroom, apart from his other duties in the society. In the past, the deceased had pulled him up for neglecting his duty and they last had a spat on Friday. On Sunday morning, he was summoned to clear the choked pipe in her bathroom. “Once in the flat, the two had another verbal altercation which quickly turned physical. He was carrying a coconut knife hidden in his clothes which he attempted to use to make the deceased submit to his demands,” said an investigating officer from Powai police.

However, the quick-thinking woman managed to duck his advances. But during the struggle the accused ended up with injuries. “She snatched the knife from him at one point and hit him hard on the head with its wooden end,” said the officer, adding had the blow been more forceful, it would have led to Atwal’s death. “It would have been a case of self-defence and the court would have been lenient towards her,” said the officer.

Things did not turn out that way as Atwal eventually dealt a fatal wound on her. “After the murder, the accused went to another washroom where he tried to wash off the blood stains from his clothes and the weapon. The housing society’s CCTV footage shows him going behind the building soon after coming downstairs where he changed out of his bloodied uniform. However, since his own wounds were deep, they left stains on his clean shirt, which he wore before going home,” said the officer.

He was too scared to enter his house in blood-stained clothes and when his wife saw him, he blamed the injuries on “broken shards of glass he had handled at work”.

Atwal was produced in court on Tuesday with a scar running across his face – the sign of the scuffle that had ensued between him and the deceased, before he killed her. He was arrested on Monday after Powai police tracked him down to his home in Tunga village, not too far from the housing society where he worked. The post-mortem report of the deceased is awaited.