PANAJI: Four days after perfumer and researcher Monica Ghurde was found murdered in her flat at Sangolda, Goa police tracked down the alleged killer, a 21-year-old man, and arrested him from a hotel in Bengaluru with the help of local police on Sunday.
He will be brought back to Goa on Monday, said Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Vimal Gupta.
Addressing the media, Gupta, along with SP North Umesh Gaonkar, SDPO Mahesh Gaonkar and police inspector Rajesh Kumar said that they have arrested Rajkumar Singh, who hails from Punjab. The DIG said that the accused was arrested from Bengaluru where he had checked into a hotel after committing the crime.
Singh had worked as a security guard of Bella Vista, the building complex where Ghurde resided, and was fired from the job around two months back following complaints by several residents.
Ghurde was found strangled to death in her rented apartment in Sangolda. Her naked body was recovered on October 6 with her hands tied to the bed. However, investigation revealed she was killed a day earlier. There were no visible bodily injuries. She had been living alone in the flat.
Gupta said police lodged a murder case after her husband Bharat Ram Amrutam filed a complaint with the Saligao police station. During the course of investigation, police came to know that the security guard of the building complex had been sacked. Gupta said that taking that into consideration, police collected all the details. It was found that Ghurde’s mobile phone was missing. Singh had also stolen two ATM cards of Ghurde besides her mobile phone, and transactions made through them helped the police track him, said the DIG.
Singh, originally a native of Bhatinda in Punjab, became the main suspect after he withdrew cash from an ATM machine in Porvorim, few kilometres away from the scene of the crime, on the morning of October 6. Police procured CCTV footage from the ATM booth and identified him with the help of a photo available with them in a tenant verification form submitted to Porvorim police. Gupta said Singh had withdrawn money using ATM cards several times at different locations, including Bengaluru. He had withdrawn more than Rs 1 lakh using both the ATM cards which belonged to Monica, the DIG said.
A team of Goa police, with help from their Bengaluru counterparts, zeroed in on Singh, who had checked into a hotel on Saturday midnight. He was formally placed under arrest on Sunday.