Dinesh Kamath's news item 'Thane court to look into the murder case' that was published in Newsband

Thane court to look into the murder case

By Dinesh Kamath

NAVI MUMBAI: Bombay High Court has directed that case relating to the murder of Navi Mumbai builder Sunil Lahoria be transferred out of Navi Mumbai. The request for the transfer was done by the deceased’s son. Hence the accused developer Sumit Bacchewar was produced before a Thane court on Monday.

The Thane chief metropolitan magistrate court remanded Bacchewar to police custody till March 9. While seeking his custody, the police told chief judicial magistrate S Sontakke that they need to interrogate Bacchewar to trace the other four accused in the case and that the murder weapon is yet to be recovered.

The Mumbai crime branch with the help of Regional Passport Office is trying to get hold of all the details of Bijlani's passport. Earlier Bijlani was unable to show his passport to the Vashi police since, according to him, his passport had been sent for renewal. Now it is become obvious that Bijlani had lied to the police. The Navi Mumbai police is being criticized for not applying pressure on Bijlani and forcing him to part with his passport.

The police did carry out an extensive search in Bijlani’s house but could not come across any objectionable documents. His family too was interrogated but the police could not extract from them any information that could help them in this case. The police is now waiting for the details of the passport from the Regional Passport Office and that will give them the idea whether Bijlani has fled the country.

It was to prevent Bijlani from fleeing the country that the city police had issued a Look Out Circular (LOC) against Bijlani. According to the latest report, the police have got the information that Bijlani is making an attempt to file an anticipatory bail petition in the Supreme Court since the lower courts had earlier rejected his bail.