Sandhya Singh file handed over to Crime Branch

Navi Mumbai Crime Branch handed over the Sandhya Singh case file to Mumbai Crime Branch Friday, after the home department made the transfer official.

"DCP Shrikant Pathak brought the case file. He also briefed our officers at crime branch headquarters Friday afternoon," said a senior officer.

The family of Sandhya had demanded the transfer saying Navi Mumbai Crime Branch would not be able to ensure an impartial probe as one of its officers had been found to have been in regular touch with Sandhya.

The policeman, assistant police inspector Anil Behrani, is currently posted with the NRI Seawoods police station. Call Data Records have shown several conversations between him and Sandhya, some of them as long as forty minutes. Sandhya's family later said that he had once visited their residence and asked her son Raghuveer some intrusive questions about her marriage to Jaiprakash Singh, a central excise commissioner. The Navi Mumbai police, on their part, had claimed that they had already probed this aspect and found nothing suspicious.

Officers of crime branch unit VI are analysing the case file. Questioning of suspects is expected to begin shortly.

"We will begin with suspects against whom there is the strongest circumstantial evidence. The case file also contains call data records which we are analysing," said the officer.

Sandhya, sister of music composers Jatin and Lalit and yesteryear actresses Sulakshana and Vijeta Pandit, had gone missing on December 13 last year.

After initially registering a missing complaint, police recently registered a murder case. The forensic sciences laboratory in Kalina confirmed a partial skeleton found in Navi Mumbai last month was hers.

ALSO READ

In a first, BMC to survey children under 14

Teen raped at birthday party, sold to man

Alleged bomb planter Siddiqui claims ATS threatened to kill him

Cops pin hopes on CCTV footage to arrest acid attack accused