Four years after murder, Kirti Vyas’s body remains untraceable

It is unusual but not unheard of, for the police to file a charge sheet in a murder investigation when the body of the deceased remains missing

Mumbai Four years after Kirti Vyas was murdered, the body of the finance manager of B Blunt Salon, Andheri, is yet to be located. Even the dummy used by the investigators of unit 2 of Mumbai police crime branch to recreate the scenario at Wadala creek, where the accused disposed of the body, seems to have disappeared in the swirling waters of Mumbai’s coast.

Nearly two months after Vyas’ family filed a missing complaint when their daughter failed to return home after work — the police began to search a 10-km stretch of the eastern shoreline near Wadala creek (HT Photo)

Vyas, a 28-year-old finance manager in the Andheri branch of B Blunt, one of Mumbai’s tony salon chains, was reportedly killed by two colleagues — Siddhesh Tamhankar (then 28) and Khushi Sahjwani (then 42) — on March 16, 2018. The two, who were purportedly in a relationship (Sahjwani was married, Tamhankar wasn’t), dumped Vyas’ body in Wadala creek, a narrow nullah that empties out into the eastern coastline. The investigation team, led by the then deputy commissioner of Mumbai crime branch Dilip Sawant, said it cracked the case within a month and Tamhankar and Sahjwani eventually confessed to the crime. On May 5, they were arrested. By July 31, the police filed their 962-page charge sheet before the Esplanade court. The trial is still ongoing, with Sahjwani out on bail.

It is unusual but not unheard of, for the police to file a charge sheet in a murder investigation when the body of the deceased remains missing. Yet, this was not for the lack of trying to locate it.

In May — nearly two months after Vyas’ family filed a missing complaint when their daughter failed to return home after work — the police began to search a 10-km stretch of the eastern shoreline near Wadala creek. The search was carried out over the course of several days.

“We used drones to trace the body at places that were not accessible for divers and boats. Two men with 4-K drones were deployed to capture photographs at different locations, but it was all in vain,” said Sawant, who is now the additional commissioner of police (south region).

A month later, the team hit upon an innovative idea: it took help of experts who create dummies for Bollywood films and got one made to Vyas’ height and weight. The team took it to the same spot where Tamhankar and Sahjwani had reportedly left Vyas’ body on the evening of March 16.

The creek at Wadala empties into the Arabian Sea along the eastern shoreline. The area has a thick mangrove cover, and the investigating team hoped to ascertain the impact of the mangroves as well as the tide on where the dummy would float to. Soon after releasing it into the creek, a group of policemen in fishermen boats began to follow the dummy. They tracked it for two kilometres, but it soon disappeared into the sea, a police officer, who was part of the investigation team, said.

“We tried everything”

“The dummy was thrown in the sea to check, if gets stuck in mangroves or washes ashore on the coast with the waves. Ten fishermen and some policemen in two boats were deployed to monitor the dummy. The dummy went towards high seas. They monitored it for about two kilometres, but thereafter could not locate it in water,” said Sawant.

“For about a year, we were in constant touch with coastal policemen across Maharashtra and even some part of Gujarat coast, but did not get any lead about possible whereabouts of the body,” he added.

“Searching for the body was quite a task and we made all efforts possible. We took the help of BMC officials as well as local fishermen to trace her body in storm-water drains,” another officer with the investigating team said.

The police extended their search along the entire eastern coastline of Mumbai, from Colaba to Trombay. They even searched the shoreline of Alibag in the neighbouring Raigad district, in case the body had washed up ashore along the mainland.

Five boats of local fishermen were deployed for the search operation during this time. Hundreds of local fishermen from Wadala and Mahul villages helped the police conduct searches in the mangroves between Wadala and Trombay, the second official said.

The investigation was arduous from the start. The crime branch scrutinised footage from more than 400 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed on all the roads between Grant Road and Andheri, Santacruz and Wadala terminus. It was only after scouring the several hours of footage from March 16, 2018 that the team was able to piece together what happened.

“Strangulated, body kept in car trunk”

Shortly after 9 am, Sahjwani picked up Vyas from her Grant Road residence. A CCTV around Navjivan Society near Grant Road railway station picked up Vyas sitting in the front seat of Sahjwani’s Ford Ecosport at 9.18am. Around 9.25am, as the SUV passed Saat Rasta in Byculla, Vyas was no longer visible.

When Vyas did not return home, her family lodged a missing person report at the DB Marg police station in Lamington Road on March 17. Between March 18 and April 15, the police questioned Tamhankar and Sahjwani for several hours, but neither revealed much during their interrogation. Meanwhile, another team from Unit 2 of the crime branch sent Sahjwani’s car to the Kalina forensic science laboratory for chemical analysis in the beginning of April. Within a fortnight, the results came back. The laboratory found a blood stain in the car and the DNA matched with that of Vyas’ mother. This proved to be the break the police was looking for.

Both the accused could not convincingly answer why the blood stain was a match to Vyas’s mother and they eventually confessed to the crime. They were arrested on May 5, 2018, for kidnapping and murdering the 28-year-old and destroying evidence.

Here’s what they believed happened: Tamhankar, a Bhoiwada resident, was part of Vyas team, and had been working in the salon since 2013. Sahjwani lived with her husband and 16-year-old son Santacruz, and headed the salon academy for the past two years. The two were in a relationship, which Vyas reportedly knew about. However, Vyas had put Tamhakar on notice for shoddy work — which he did not rectify despite being pulled up by Vyas.

On March 16, the two picked up Vyas from her residence. The police believed that the accused strangled her, pulled her on to the rear seat and pushed her into the car’s boot by folding back the rear seat — all within a span of seven minutes between Saat rasta and Navjivan society, the two spots from where CCTV footage was collected.

The police charge sheet stated that Tamhankar, who was present in the car, searched Vyas’ bag and switched off her mobile phones somewhere near Worli. The two drove to Sahjwani’s residence where they parked the SUV with body in the boot, and left for work. After work, they drove to Wadala creek, where they allegedly dumped Vyas’ body.

Four years on, the chances of recovering the body are next to nil. But the police are confident that they will be able to prove the guilt of the accused based on the evidence they gathered. The police case was based mainly on traces of blood stains found in Sahjwani’s car, the CCTV footage and circumstantial evidence like Call Detail Records (CDR) of the accused – the duo reportedly called each other at least 50 times the following day.

On December 3, 2021, the trial began. Since then, Rajendra Vyas, Kirti’s father, has testified as a prosecution witness. Sahjwani is out on bail, and Tamhankar is still behind bars.