Police question Shivani’s domestic helps

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">NEW DELHI: The crime branch team investigating the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, questioned three women who had worked as part-time maids in her house in Navkunj apartments. While one domestic helper Valli used to cook, her mother washed the utensils. The third one Vidya was hired to massage Shivani’s newborn son.‘‘The focus of questioning was to find out Shivani’s relationship with prime accused R K Sharma. By interrogating them, we wanted to find out whether Sharma was a frequent visitor to the house,’’ a police officer said. The three women were questioned for a few hours at the crime branch office in Adarsh Nagar police station, where Sharma is being held in police custody. Taking the investigation further, the police are also questioning some Air India officials to determine if Sharma had applied to take part in a week-long training program in Pune. According to the police, Sharma was in Pune on January 23, 1999, the day that Shivani was murdered. ‘‘It was the last day of his stay at Pune,’’ the officer said. ‘‘We want to find out if Sharma had decided to move out of Mumbai purposely to create an alibi, or if he was genuinely called for training,’’ the officer added. The police have also found out that the second car used by the accused to reach Shivani’s house on January 23, 1999 was a Maruti Zen. Five persons, Sri Bhagwan Sharma, Satprakash, Pradeep Sharma, Ved Prakash Sharma and Ved Prakash alias Kallu had gone to the house in the two cars. Sri Bhagwan, Satprakash and Pradeep had gone in an Esteem. The Esteem belongs to Sri Bhagwan and the police had traced that earlier. After questioning Ved Prakash Sharma, the police learnt that the second car was a Zen. ‘‘We are trying to trace the car. It might be in some other state like the Esteem car which was found in Andhra Pradesh,’’ the officer said. Ved Prakash Sharma’s questioning has also helped the police to link the accused with R K Sharma. ‘‘He has admitted to have known Sharma through Sri Bhagwan. Ved Prakash Sharma has also said he had met Shivani, like all the other accused, for the first time at Ashoka hotel on January 13, 1999,’’ the officer said. <span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Pradeep admits to stealing papers from Shivani’s house</span> One of the accused Pradeep admitted he stole papers from Shivani’s house after she was murdered, the police said. ‘‘He and Satprakash said R K Sharma had asked them to get some documents. But they failed to take away two of the documents, which the police seized,’’ the officer said. The police initially claimed that the assailants had rummaged through the house to mislead them. </div> </div>