City stockbroker arrested for aiding murder accused

The story that has revealed the dark side of Bollywood just got murkier.

The story that has revealed the dark side of Bollywood just got murkier. After the arrest of a small-time model Simran Sood and wannabe film producer Vijay Palande for the murders of actor Anuj Tikku’s father Arunkumar Tikku and financier Karan Kakkad, the Mumbai police on Monday arrested Page 3 regular and former boyfriend of late supermodel Viveka Babajee, Gautam Vora, and suspended police inspector Sanjay Shinde for assisting Palande in his attempt to escape after he was arrested on April 10.

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Constable Amol Deshpande, who accompanied Palande to Amboli police station when he was first questioned after Kakkad’s disappearance in the first week of March, has also been suspended.

Deven Bharati, additional commissioner of police (crime), said that “Vora also had plans to send Palande out of the country”.

After his escape, Palande met Vora near Marine Lines station from where the duo went to Colaba. After buying clothes for Palande, they checked into a hotel there. “Vora was trying to help Palande flee to Bangkok,” Bharati said. Vora had been questioned by the Mumbai police following supermodel Babajee’s suicide in June 2010.

Shinde and constable Deshpande from the crime branch, along with another officer and constable, will face a departmental inquiry regarding the escape. Palande is the brother of Shinde’s elder brother’s wife. The inspector and the constable allegedly tried to pressure the investigating officer at Amboli police station to go soft on Palande.