A DAY after a 55-year-old Lalita Pinge was murdered in Shivaji Park, the police on Tuesday questioned several persons who used to visit the Pinge household. The Crime Branch is also conducting a parallel investigation.
According to the police, Pinge was found dead by her son Ajay (28) with her throat slit and hands tied with a rope around 9 pm on Monday in her ground-floor apartment in Parag building on Cadell Road. The police believe that the murder is the handiwork of a person known to Pinge as there were no signs of struggle and cash and valuables at the house are intact. Lalita’s husband Balachandra runs Pinge’s coaching classes in Dadar. Lalita—Ajay too—also taught at the coaching centre. The couple’s younger son Ashok is in the US for the past three years.
“A flower vendor is missing since Monday night and we are questioning others like the milk delivery boy,” said a Crime Branch officer. “We also found two glasses of water and a bouquet in the house. We suspect that the culprit had brought the bouquet for Lalita,” said the officer.
“We recovered a knife cover from the house and suspect that the assailant had purchased a new one. He hit the deceased with a blunt object (Lalita had injury marks on her head and right cheek),” he said.
The police are questioning various people who used to visit the house. “According to family members, Lalita never allowed any outsider home so we suspect that the culprit is an insider. The door was open and the jewellery and cash (around Rs 1 lakh) is intact,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police D Phadtare.
“I left my office at around 8.45 pm and reached home in 10 minutes. I rang the doorbell but no body answered. I thought my mother may has gone out so I opened the door using my key. I found the second iron door open. The passage light was switched off,” Ajay told the police. “I then switched on the light only to see my mother’s lifeless body lying near my television set in a pool of blood. Her throat was slit. She was dead. I then called my father and informed the police and my uncle, who stays in the neighbourhood,” he said.
Lalita lived on the ground floor (room no 1) of Parag building.
Ajay also said that he had a spat with his uncle over a business dispute on Monday. “My uncle also coaches in Pinge classes. There was some problem between our staff members and we had an argument over that,” Ajay said
According to Ajay, servants were allowed inside the house only when he or his father was around. He said all three of them, including his mother and father, had duplicate keys to the keys.
“We have two domestic helps; one has been working for the past six years and another for the past 15 years,” Ajay told the police.
“The police are conducting investigations and we don’t want to speak now,” said Lalita’s sister-in-law.