Krishna Pujari
THE Mumbai Police on Monday filed 542-pages chargesheet (included the statements of 76 witnesses) in Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court in software engineer Esther Anuhya rape and murder case. The accused Chandrabhan Sudam Sanap (28), a history-sheeter has been charged under sections of murder, rape, destruction of evidence under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and also relevant provisions of the Indian Railways Act.
The 23-year-old Anuhya a native of Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, was employed as assistant system engineer with IT major TCS at its office in suburban Goregaon. Her decomposed body was found off the Eastern Express Highway in Bhandup on January 16, 2014. After painstaking scrutiny of 36 CCTVs’ footages at the railway station and grilling of about 2,500 people, investigators stumbled upon Sanap. Sanap is the same person who was spotted with Anuhya in CCTV footage at the Kurla railway terminus on January 5, the day she went missing.
After two months (in March) of the incident Sanap was arrested and he had confessed his crime. In his statement to police, Sanap spotted Anuhya sitting at Kurla railway station alone and offered to drop her to Andheri, where she resided. He convinced the techie to sit on his motorcycle and strangled her at an isolated place when she resisted his attempt to rob her. Police later claimed they suspected victim was raped too. He claimed his initial conspiracy was only intended to rob her.
There are several cases registered against Sanap. He worked as a railway porter and was working as a driver in Nashik. Police had apprehended him from Kanjurmarg and placed under arrest.