Beedi, condom packet helped crack Delhi’s Vasant Vihar triple murder, states chargesheet

In the meantime, a team of ISC, led by ACP Jasbir Singh, and inspector Vijay Samaria met with the family and started scanning Shashi’s call details. “Shashi’s daughter told police that a woman, Preeti Sehrawat, had met her mother recently. They checked her details and found she was staying in Gurgaon,” a senior officer said, adding that she was staying in a hotel along with one Manoj Bhatt. Both were arrested and booked for the murder. The motive, police said, was robbery.

The chargesheet was filed before a Delhi court last week. Police, during investigation, found a cigarette packet and beedi stubs from the spot. “The forensic report states that the biological stains on the source of the beedi’s remnants match Bhatt’s blood sample, while biological stains present on the cigarette match with the blood sample of Sehrawat. During questioning, Bhatt disclosed that he smoked a beedi before committing the murders. When Sehrawat took out a cigarette and was about to light it, he asked her not to smoke, and she put it back into the packet. This, too, was recovered by police,” the chargesheet states.

To mislead police, Bhatt purchased a condom and placed it under Nautiyal’s pillow after the murders. “Police have recovered Bhatt’s clothes, knife, screwdriver, and the remaining condoms from Sushant Lok in Gurgaon, where he had dumped the items,” police stated in their chargesheet.

FSL experts have opined that the condoms recovered were similar to the ones found at the victims’ home. “Bhatt had purchased a packet of three condoms and had torn one and placed it under Khushboo’s pillow,” police said.

After the murder, four fingerprints had been lifted — one from a plastic box and three from a wooden almirah. “We have received a report which has proved that Bhatt touched the wooden almirah while committing the crime,” police said.