Delhi: Chopped body of bartender found in fridge, police hunt for missing friend

The victim, Vipin Joshi, had been missing since Monday night and the police had launched a search for him after his disappearance was brought to their notice, said Chinmoy Biswal, additional DCP (south). Police said the prime suspect in the case was one Badal Mandal, Joshi’s co-worker and “close friend”.

A 29-year-old bartender’s body was found chopped in multiple pieces and stuffed inside a refrigerator at his co-worker’s home in Saidulajab, an urban village in south Delhi’s Saket, police said on Saturday.

Police suspect a meat cleaver was used to chop the body. The alleged murder weapon is yet to be recovered.

The victim, Vipin Joshi, had been missing since Monday night and the police had launched a search for him after his disappearance was brought to their notice, said Chinmoy Biswal, additional DCP (south).

Police said the prime suspect in the case was one Badal Mandal, Joshi’s co-worker and “close friend”. Mandal has been absconding since the incident, but the police hope to trace him soon. Biswal said the duo worked as bartenders at ‘Fio Country Kitchen and Bar’ that is located inside the Garden of Five Senses in Saket.

The men lived in Saidulajab in separate rented accommodations, not far from each other.

While Joshi’s family lived in Uttarakhand, Mandal had sent his wife and two children away to their home in West Bengal late last month.

Joshi’s disappearance was brought to the police’s notice on Thursday after one of his relatives called his mobile phone multiple times and failed to get a response. A search was subsequently launched.

Meanwhile, Badal too had been missing.

“It was late on Saturday afternoon when a PCR call was made about a foul smell emanating from a house in Saidulajab. When a police team entered the room, it emerged that the odour was coming from inside a refrigerator, whose door was half-shut” said Biswal.

The refrigerator was half shut. When police opened the refrigerator to take a look inside, they found large chopped pieces of a man’s body.

The police are yet to establish the motive behind the murder and establish the sequence of events.

The trays in the fridge had been removed to accommodate the body that had started to decompose as the fridge was not shut properly .

Police suspect a meat cleaver was used to chop the body. The alleged murder weapon is yet to be recovered.

“We found blood-stained clothes and liquor bottles at the spot. A knife too was found, but we still need to establish if it was used in the killing and chopping the body,” said an investigator.

Police suspect that the murder might have taken place two days ago.

The police have begun scanning the CCTV footage of the restaurant-cum-bar as well as those in the residential neighbourhood to establish the sequence of events before and after the murder.