Lalbaug woman arrested for killing mother, chopping body
According to the police, the victim, Veena Prakash Jain, was last seen alive by one of the neighbours on December 26. The alleged murderer, Rimple Jain, lived with her, and after the murder, used to spray perfumes and room fresheners to suppress the foul smell. A Class 12 dropout, Rimple lost her father around 20 years ago
MUMBAI: A 23-year-old resident of Ibrahim Kasam building in Lalbaug allegedly murdered her 55-year-old mother, amputated her limbs and hid the body parts for months in the house. The Kalachowkie police, who arrested the woman on Wednesday, found her mother’s decomposed torso stuffed in a plastic gunny bag in a cupboard and her limbs in a water drum in the bathroom.
According to the police, the victim, Veena Prakash Jain, was last seen alive by one of the neighbours on December 26. The alleged murderer, Rimple Jain, lived with her, and after the murder, used to spray perfumes and room fresheners to suppress the foul smell. A Class 12 dropout, Rimple lost her father around 20 years ago.
On Tuesday evening, the wife of the victim’s brother Suresh Porwal approached the Kalachowkie police to inform them that Veena had been missing for months, and that she and her husband had last met her on November 26 the previous year. Residents of Veena’s building used to tell Porwal that they too had not seen Veena for long and that there was a foul stench emanating from her house.
When Porwal’s wife finally went to Veena’s house on Tuesday, no one answered the doorbell. Getting a whiff of the foul odour, she then called relatives for help. “They broke open the door and found Rimple in the house, which was filthy,” said a police officer. “The odour was stronger inside the house, and it appeared that Rimple had not had a bath for long.”
When the relatives asked Rimple where her mother was, she told them that she was sleeping and pointed towards her bed. “However, when Porwal’s wife pulled the blanket off, they found pillows underneath,” said the police officer. “When they again questioned Rimple, she told them her mother had gone to Kanpur. That and the stench put together made them suspect that something was seriously wrong, and they took Rimple to the police station.”
When police inspector Sudarshan Chavan went to the building with two constables and searched the house, they found the victim’s torso and head wrapped in a saree and stuffed in a polythene bag and her limbs in a steel drum in the bathroom. The police team also found an electric marble cutter and a sickle in the house, and suspect that the articles might have been used to amputate Veena’s limbs.
“The body parts were almost completely decomposed, and must have been there for months. We called a team of forensic experts from Kalina, doctors from KEM Hospital and fingerprint experts,” said Dr Pravin Munde, DCP Zone IV.
Rimple, however, claimed to the police that her mother had fallen from the first floor while standing in the common passage on December 27, and was carried up by two employees of a hotel on the ground floor. The police questioned the employees who confirmed this: they also said that Veena was alive then but when they asked her if she wanted to be taken to hospital, she told them to take her upstairs to her home.
Another police officer claimed that Rimple had confessed to murdering her mother and dismembering the body but had not revealed the motive yet. “It appears that the mother and daughter had continuous minor disputes, and after one such, Rimple might have killed her mother,” said a police officer, adding that the 23-year-old could have taken advantage of the noise caused by renovation work in the building to chop the body with the marble cutter. The officer added that after the alleged murder, the accused mostly ordered food from outside and drank bottled water.
Savita Ugale, a neighbour, told HT that as building residents shared a common toilet, nobody could remain “unseen” for long. “We questioned Rimple several times, and every time she told us that her mother was unwell,” she said. “She said that due to the dust caused by the renovation work, her mother had breathing trouble and had therefore not stepped out since January 1. We thought she might have bought a bedpan for her ill mother and that was why she hadn’t been using the common toilet.”
“We are not the Jain family’s immediate neighbours,” said Chandra Dharankar, another neighbour. “A Chinese restaurant chain has rented several rooms in the building and the hotel employees stay in the rooms just next to the Jains’ residence. These men are usually very preoccupied with their own work, and didn’t notice or mention anything. Sometime in January this year, we started getting whiffs of a foul smell, and went to their house and questioned Rimple about it.
According to Dharankar, Rimple told the neighbours that her mother was sleeping. “She came out and pulled the door shut,” she said. “She even yelled out, ‘Mummy, l am talking to Aunty and will come back soon.’ When asked about the stench, Rimple told them that it came from dead mice. “After this, she started spraying freshener in the room,” said Dharankar. “We learnt later that she had purchased sprays and fresheners for over ₹15,000 from a nearby medical store.”
Rimple was produced before the Mazagaon metropolitan magistrate’s court, which has sent her to police custody till March 20.