Robber posing as cabbie raped, murdered techie
S Ahmed Ali TNN
March 3, 2014Mumbai: Petty thief Chandrabhan Sanap posed as a private taxi driver and offered to drop techie Esther Anuhya home for Rs 300 before dawn on January 5 at the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Kurla. Once she had walked into the trap, he sexually assaulted and killed her in the mangroves near Kanjurmarg, according to the police.
Sanap, the 28-year-old arrested in Nashik, has claimed that he tried to rape Esther, but his accomplice, Nandkumar Sahu, said Sanap had admitted to him that he had raped and murdered the girl.
Sahu was detained in Jharkhand and brought to the city to investigate his role in the brutal crime.
The police have booked Sanap under IPC sections 302 and 201 for murder and destroying evidence and are awaiting forensic reports to prove rape.
On January 5, Sanap, who had been drinking, came to the Kurla terminus with theft on his mind. He targeted Anuhya posing as a driver. Giving his cellphone number and vehicle number, he sweet-talked her into being dropped on his bike.
At the Kanjurmarg mangroves, barely two km from where he lives, he stopped, saying his bike had run out of fuel, and attacked her.
Accused has at least 8 stealing cases in his name
Esther Family: Happy Culprits Caught, Hope They Are Punished
S Ahmed Ali TNN
City police commissioner Rakesh Maria on Monday said both detection techniques and technical evidence played a role in arresting techie Esther Anuhya's murder suspect Chandrabhan Sanap alias Chaukya and his friend Nandkumar Sahu as both were missing from a Kanjurmarg slum since the girl’s body was found. An SIT and the crime branch were probing the case after the GRP drew a blank.
Giving details, Maria said Sanap, son of a railway porter, had arrived at LTT at around 4am on January 5 with a clear intention to carry out a robbery/
theft. He was a habitual offender and had several bag-snatching and stealing cases against his name. As the train bringing Anuhya back from a Christmas vacation at Machlipatnam arrived, he began hunting for a target. Soon, he spotted the techie coming out of the waiting room, and made his taxi pitch.
“To convince her, he gave her his cellphone number and brought her to the parking lot. At the parking lot, he told her he did not have his taxi, but could drop her on his motorcycle,” said Maria. Asked how she agreed to go on a bike with an unknown person before the sun had risen, Maria said they were still interrogating Sanap and details would emerge.
Interestingly, sources said Sanap had parked his bike in front of the RPF office at the terminus. This may have inspired some confidence in Anuhya, who went with her backpack and a trolley suitcase.
On reaching the deserted spot near a service road by the EEH, Sanap stopped the bike, saying he was out of fuel. He forced Anuhya into the scrub and tried to rape her. As she resisted, he banged her head on the ground and the stones there and then strangled her with her stole.
“The accused collected her laptop and baggage and fled to the Sai Society slums in Kanjurmarg. There he realized he had forgotten to take her cellphone. He spoke to close friend and neighbour Sahu and returned with him to the site within half an hour. But he had to quit his cellphone search as day was breaking,” said Sadanand Date, joint commissioner of police (crime). They took petrol from the bike and tried in vain to burn the body. It is surprising that during both trips, they did not take her gold ring.
“Nothing can compensate my losses, but I am happy the culprits have been booked. Now I wish that they are punished by law,” said Anuhya’s father S J S Prasad. He could not be in the city and was represented by his brother Arun Kumar at Maria’s press meet.
“We studied footage from 33 CCTVs, more than one lakh call detail reports at LTT and the scene of crime, questioned around 2,500 suspects, including taxi, auto drivers and several look-alike suspects before we got hold of Chandrabhan,” Maria said.
After Anuhya’s family members found her partly-burned body and a proper police probe started, Sahu fled to Jharkhand and Sanap to Nashik. “In a bid to evade any suspicion, he grew a beard, started putting a tika on his forehead and avoided crowded places,” said Nandkumar Gopale, an SIT member.
But he was only partially successful. Two weeks before the crime branch got him, the GRP tracked him down with the help of the CCTV footage from the station as first reported in the TOI on February 25. Two GRP constable, A Salvi and S Konde, traced him to the slums and got Sanap’s mother to identify him. When they grilled him, Sanap gave a false phone number and managed to fob off the disinterested GRP.
But the crime branch proved more insistent. When he lied that he was not in Mumbai at the time of the crime, it scanned call records and found his location on the night of the crime to be near LTT.
TIMES VIEW : Cops have not exactly covered themselves with glory in this case. Right from the start — when cops failed to take the missing complaint seriously — to the botched-up probe, everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. Cops need to handle complaints with a far greater degree of seriousness and compassion. And the LTT premises, one of the busiest gateways to the city, need to be made safer; this station is the worst advertisement Mumbai can have. PITFALLS IN A TRAGEDY 1
Esther left for home around
5.10am when it was still pitch-dark. Her father wanted her to wait at the station till daybreak 2
She entered and exited the
waiting room in a hurry. Knowing LTT, maybe its condition appalled her 3
Everyone who interacted with the
suspect ‘taxiwallah’ at that time said he appeared drunk. Was Esther fooled by him? 4
Did he
similarly smoothtalk her into going with him on a bike with her luggage when he didn’t have a taxi? 5
Did she pretend to call
somebody, just so that the man was aware that he couldn’t take liberties with her? AFTER POLICE APATHY, QUESTIONS REMAIN
The Accomplice
Nandkishore Sahu (33)
is Chandrabhan’s neighbour. Claims he came with Chandrabhan soon after the crime to try and dispose of Esther’s body after the latter confided in him that he had raped and killed the techie
Sahu claims he fled to Jharkhand after Chandrabhan threatened him. Police are probing if Sahu took part in the crime Not the First Time GRP Has Goofed Up
Two GRP constables used CCTV pics and traced Chandrabhan to the Kanjurmarg slum
His mother identified him and the GRP caught him in Nashik. He gave them a false phone number and after interrogation, he was released
But 2 wks later, the crime branch nabbed him and caught his lie that he was not in Mumbai on the day of the crime through phone records
This is the second goof-up by the GRP
In the Preeti Rathi acid attack case in Bandra terminus, the GRP first arrested accused Ankur Panwar (23), a hotel management graduate but couldn’t get any info
Panwar lied that he had gone to Hardwar for hotel job interview and the GRP believed him
The crime branch went to Hardwar to cross check the facts and caught his lies, said an officer
Some More Questions
Chandrabhan is a petty thief. Yet why did he not steal the gold ring on Esther’s finger even when he came to search for her cellphone near her body?
Kanjurmarg seems way off any route from LTT to Andheri. Couldn’t Esther make out they were on a wrong route?
If Esther’s talk time was running out, why didn’t she message her family members or friends for a refill while on the train?
Initially, police said there were traces of chemical on the decomposed body. Chandrabhan said he poured petrol on her jeans to burn her body
The Victim Software engineer Esther Anuhya (23) reached Mumbai, where she worked with TCS, from her hometown in AP by train and alighted at Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Kurla around 4.55am on January 5
Around 5.10am, she is seen leaving the station with Chnadrabhan
10 days later, her partyburned, semi-decomposed body is found by her family in the mangroves off the Eastern Express Highway near Kanjurmarg
Esther used to stay in Andheri
Cops Made Family Run Around Esther’s father got in touch with his brother in Navi Mumbai when she couldn’t be contacted The brother moved the Andheri MIDC police — Esther used to stay in a hostel under its jurisdiction — but they sent him to Kurla railway police station The Kurla police pointed at Vijaywada police in Andhra Pradesh The Vijaywada police ascertained through phone records she had reached Kurla terminus, forcing the Kurla police to register the missing person complaint on January 8, three days since Esther went missing Steps taken to secure passengers at LTT
Kurla GRP outpost got 20 additional personnel to patrol LTT GRP listing names,
registration numbers of cabbies, auto drivers ferrying women
RPF started kennel with two sniffers and a tracker
Steps Proposed There are 33 CCTVs at LTT. GRP has demanded at least 100 more Pre-paid auto stand plan gathering dust for two years Traffic police and auto-taxi unions have suggested an assistance counter for women and a public announcement system
Why You Can’t Avoid LTT Some major trains servicing the east, UP and the south like Jnaneswari Superfast Express, Khushinagar Express, Godan Express, Kamayani Express, Lucknow Superfast Express, Manmad Express, Netravati Express, Matsyagandha Express, Udyan Express start and terminate at the Kurla long-distance station
Accused Chandrabhan Sanap
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