Found pulled out tufts of hair; murder intentional, says police

Strongly opposing the bail application of 18-year-old accused Diya Padalkar in the murder of her childhood friend Jhanvi Kukreja before a sessions court, the Khar Police has said in its reply that they have found tufts of hair in different locations at the scene of crime indicating the violent force used. “If we consider the thinking of a normal person, during a scuffle, hair is never pulled out in a huge manner. But if one considers the tufts of hair recovered in the incident, the deceased’s hair was violently pulled out using force,” the police have stated.

The reply also mentioned the two earrings and a hairband found on the stairway of the building and said that it has been established that they belong to Jhanvi and Diya.

After the murder, Diya went to the party host Yash Ahuja’s flat on the second floor in an injured condition, the reply said and mentioned blood spots founds in the flat at several places.

The main ground on which the police opposed the bail was that both the accused have admittedly also got injured during around the time of the incident. The police said that both were injured out of the same crime and that the offence can be proved on this point alone.

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If we consider the thinking of a normal person, during a scuffle, hair is never pulled out in a huge manner. But if one considers the tufts of hair recovered in the incident, the deceased’s hair was violently pulled out using force. -

In Diya's bail plea filed through advocate Ashok Mishra, she had stated that she had got injured due to a fall on the stairs. Pointing to 48 injuries all over Jhanvi’s body, many of them grievous and very grievous in nature, the police said that the murder was intentional and not an incident that happened over a quarrel that broke out suddenly. Both accused have helped each other in the crime, it said.

On Friday, Jhanvi’s mother filed an intervention in Diya’s bail plea through advocates Trivankumar Karnani and Gayatri Gokhale, which the court allowed. In the plea, her mother said that both accused fled the spot after the crime and went to separate hospitals to show themselves to be injured to get away with the crime.