Santacruz businessman murder: 'Kajal Shah too consumed some arsenic to mislead probe'

MUMBAI: City crime branch while seeking custody of Kavita alias Kajal Shah and Hitesh Jain told the court that the accused meticulously conspired and executed the murder by poisoning of her garment businessman husband Kamalkant Shah and his mother Sarla Devi with a "cool mind". The police on Thursday produced Kajal and Jain before the 37th Metropolitan Magistrate court to seek their custody.
Investigating officer Deepak Pawar told the court that the police want to investigate the two mobile phones used in the crime, which Jain had reportedly damaged and thrown on the Mumbai-Nashik Highway.They also want to search two hotels in which the accused allegedly conspired and need their further custody to collect material evidence. The cops also intimated the court that they have added Indian Penal Code Section 201 for destruction of evidence. The court remanded the duo to police custody till December 12.
Public prosecutor M S Choudhary argued in a bid to mislead investigators, Kajal herself consumed a small quantity of the arsenic and hence her blood test report showed the presence of the chemical 19.22 times above normal compared to 400 times more than normal arsenic and 362 times more thallium in Kamalkant's blood.
"The deceased Kamalkant was admitted to Bombay Hospital on September 3 and his blood test report of presence of metal came on September 13, after which doctors said all members of the Shah family may undergo a test but Kajal was reluctant and agreed to it only after 10 days (September 23) and we suspect that she herself consumed a small quantity of the deadly chemical... This was done to mislead the investigation," said Choudhary.
Kajal's lawyer, Mrunmai Kulkarni, refuted these charges. "There is no evidence and only on suspicious circumstantial evidence they have arrested Kajal. She has attended the crime branch on nine occasions and cooperated with the investigation and just on the basis of the deceased's sister's allegations, the police have arrested Kajal under a serious offence of murder. They have been doing the investigation since two months. What have they found? The prosecution themselves admitted they don't have any direct evidence, then on what grounds have they arrested Kavita," said Kulkarni.
Police informed the court they have recovered a tin in which the accused had stored arsenic and thallium. Police said forensic experts have been able to extract only 25% of the data and further analysis is underway and they hope to get some incriminating material. Both have refused to share their Gmail passwords.
Police said they also want to interrogate the two in connection with the murder of Kamalkant's mother Sarla Devi a month earlier. Both mother and son had complained of stomach ache which did not subside despite hospitalisation.