Kwatra murder cracked, staffer among four held

Police got lead from call records of woman who wrote scripts for victim

The MHB Colony police on Thursday claimed to have cracked the murder of Navraj Kwatra, the 65-year-old son of the late writer-poet Amrita Pritam. Four persons, including a woman and her minor brother, have been nabbed.

One of the two men had learnt from the woman, his girlfriend employed as a script-writer by Kwatra, that he was rich and plotted the robbery along with a neighbour and the woman's minor brother. One of the two men was in need of money to repair his motorcycle, police investigations reveal.

The two killed Kwatra in their bid to prevent him from raising an alarm during the robbery, police sources said.

Police said they got the lead from call records of the woman, Savita Gupta (21). During investigations, police said, 300 female contacts were found on Kwatra's phone. Call data records of the numbers were scanned and it was found that Savita had made 60 calls to her boyfriend Vinay alias Vipul Bose (24) on the the day of the murder, police sources said.

Vipul, a resident of Dadar, was in Borivali at the time of the murder, his cellphone data revealed, police said.

Savita and her boyfriend Vinay alias Vipul Bose (24), a hotel cook, were detained for questioning and further investigation revealed that Vipul had come to know from Savita that Kwatra had a lot of money, police sources said.

Police claimed Vipul has confessed to having committed the crime. Reconstructing the sequence of events, police said Vipul roped in his neighbour Gaurang Khadke (21) and Savita's 17-year-old brother to hatch the robbery plot.

On the day of the robbery and murder, Vipul and Gaurang entered the flat while Savita's brother waited outside to hail an auto for their escape, they said.

... contd.

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