Bandra Bandstand murder: HC grants bail to both accused after 2 yrs in jail

In a major setback to the Mumbai Crime Branch, both the accused—arrested in an alleged murder case of a 22-year-old MBBS student at Bandra Bandstand a couple of years ago—were granted bail by the Bombay High Court on Wednesday. The prosecution has yet to produce evidence to prove that the woman had been murdered. A detailed HC order is yet to be released.

Both the accused, including the prime suspect Mithu Singh and his friend Abdul Jabbar Ansari, were arrested on January 13, 2023, by the Crime Branch Unit- 9 on the basis of circumstantial evidence. They had been lodged at the Arthur Road jail for over two years “but the prosecution is yet to produce any evidence against them”, Singh’s defence lawyer said.

Crime Branch officers at prime accused Mithu Singh’s Bandra house between Dec 2022 and Jan 2023. File Pics

While Singh and Ansari have been charge-sheeted in the case by the Crime Branch, the investigation began with limited evidence, relying mostly on the theory of who was last seen with the victim. In January 2023, mid-day spoke to her journalist father, who questioned the Crime Branch saying: “The police claim to have solved the case, but where is the evidence?” Her father accused the Crime Branch officials of “drawing conclusions without gathering evidence”. He also pointed out how the two accused were given a clean chit in September 2022 by the cops after conducting a slew of tests.

The MBBS student, a resident of Boisar in Palghar district, was never traced after November 29, 2021. She had left home to attend an exam at J J Hospital, where she never arrived. After her friends and parents learnt that she was untraceable, a missing complaint was filed and subsequently, her journalist father reached Bandra as her mobile location was last traced near Bandstand.

The Crime Branch claimed that Singh and the woman had met three times between 2 pm (November 29, 2021) and 3 am (November 30, 2021). Singh allegedly tried to create an alibi that he too had been searching for the woman. Crime Branch officers said that as per CCTV footage, the MBBS student got down at Bandra railway station around 12.45 pm and reached Bandstand around 1.30 pm. The footage shows her going onto the rocks in front of Mannat—actor Shah Rukh Khan’s residence. Thereafter, she was spotted again around 4 pm in CCTV footage from Taj Lands End hotel.

“The HC observed that the police could not produce any evidence to prove that the woman had been killed, nor did they recover her belongings. The body of the woman has not been recovered and also the bloodstains found on the buoy ring did not match with the DNA of her father. So the judge told the prosecution that the woman is probably missing,” Singh’s defence lawyer, Advocate Harshman Chavan, told mid-day.

Speaking about the reasons for the bail being granted, Chavan said, “The HC said that this is a case of circumstantial evidence and hence the trial should come to a conclusion.” The MBBS student had reportedly met Singh twice in October 2021 at his hotel Meet’s Kitchen at Bandstand a month before the alleged incident. She had casually chatted with him while having food there.

The Crime Branch suspects that on November 29, 2021, when she was meeting him for the third time, she trusted him and was comfortable talking to him till late at night. But Singh tried to take advantage of the situation, which led to a scuffle between them, the police believe.