Aspiring actor butchered by two junior artistes

An aspiring female actor from Dehradun who found work as a junior artiste in National Award-winning director Madhur Bhandarkar's movie Heroine has been murdered allegedly by two junior film artistes.

An aspiring female actor from Dehradun who found work as a junior artiste in National Award-winning director Madhur Bhandarkar's movie Heroine has been murdered allegedly by two junior film artistes.

Minakshi Thapa, 26, who had moved to Mumbai two months ago was abducted and murdered after her captors — whom she met on the sets of Heroine — realised her family could not pay the entire Rs 15 lakh ransom, police said.The Mumbai crime branch arrested the accused, Amitkumar Jaiswal, 36, a former lawyer, and his accomplice Preeti Surin, 26, both of Allahabad, from Bandra on Saturday.

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Police teams have been sent to Uttar Pradesh to trace the body parts of Thapa, who was tricked by the accused into accompanying them to Gorakhpur on March 12 for a prospective modelling assignment.

“Initially, Thapa was taken to Gorakhpur and then to Allahabad, where she was murdered. They cut the body in two by severing the head. Her trunk was disposed of in a water tank at Allahabad, while her head was thrown off a running bus near Allahabad by the accused duo,” said Deven Bharati, additional commissioner of police (crime).

The accused demanded Rs 15 lakh ransom and threatened to make a pornographic film of Thapa and murder her if they did not get the amount.

Thapa's mother then deposited Rs 60,000 in the woman's account.

But the accused killed Thapa after realising that her family was not as affluent as they had thought, police said.

Police said Thapa's brother, an ex-army man, had filed a missing person complaint at Amboli police station on March 17, while her mother filed a complaint with the police in Dehradun on March 20.

A holiday court on Sunday remanded the accused in police custody till April 23.