A gym trainer arrested in Vadodara for allegedly killing his friend plotted the murder after watching several television crime series to get ideas to execute his plan, police said on Sunday.
Satish Vasava also mortgaged the gold ornaments that he retrieved from the body of Jaimin Panchal (30), a private financer, after allegedly killing him to repay some of his debts. According to police, the accused had plotted the murder to steal the gold ornaments that the victim was wearing at the time of his death.
Makarpura police officers, who are investigating the case, Sunday recovered the highly decomposed body of Panchal from the Narmada minor canal after draining the water for over 48 hours.
Meanwhile, a local court sent Vasava and his mother, Aathu — a co-accused, in four days of police remand.
According to the police, Vasava had invited Panchal to his residence on March 31 for a liquor party, and allegedly smothered him with a pillow after intoxicating him. With the help of his mother, he allegedly disposed of Panchal’s body in the Narmada minor canal near Raghavpura the same night.
Panchal befriended Vasava when he joined the gym where the latter was a fitness trainer, said Assistant Commissioner of Police, F Division, P N Kataria. “The accused had a loan of about Rs 8 lakh from different sources and was looking to pay off his creditors. He had hatched the plan to kill Panchal, who was fond of wearing gold ornaments, to steal the same and repay some of his other loans. Apart from this, he also owed Rs 1.5 lakh to Panchal, which he wanted to get rid of,” he said, adding, Vasava’s phone history revealed that he had constantly searched for episodes of various television crime series to get ideas to execute the murder.
Soon after the murder, Vasava mortgaged the gold ornaments he had removed from Panchal’s body before dumping the body into the canal on March 31 and repaid some of his creditors with the gold loan money. “Right after the murder, he went to a gold loan financier in the city and mortgaged Panchal’s ornaments. He may have received about Rs 2 lakh in loan, which he used to repay some of his creditors… It had been a part of his plan,” the ACP added.
Kataria said Vasava misled the investigators by spinning different stories, but an in-depth probe of the CCTV footage had blown off his cover. “Initially, he told us that Panchal had departed from his house. Later, when he was found with Panchal’s motorcycle on the CCTV footage, he said that Panchal had eloped with a girlfriend and he had gone to drop them off when he was seen on the CCTV. We also found another CCTV footage of March 27, just about four days before the murder, when Vasava and Panchal were seen together on the latter’s motorcycle going towards Rajpipla. Since Panchal’s father, in his missing persons’ complaint, had clearly mentioned that Panchal had informed them that he was visiting Satish Vasava, eventually, a thorough questioning did Vasava in,” Kataria said.
Panchal’s body has been sent for post-mortem. However, the police are yet to recover the motorcycle that Vasava allegedly sold off to a garage owner to also earn some money to repay his loans.