The alleged reason for businessman Nilesh Shukla to murder his friend and police informer Avinash Solanki is said to be denigratory comments on his sexual capabilities, according to reports from The Indian Express.
The 38-year old Shukla along with his driver Vanshbahadur Singh alias Jagga (48) were on the run for almost a week before being arrested by the police in Lucknow on Saturday. Shukla’s bodyguard, Ankit Dubey (19) was also arrested from his house in Nallasopara on the day. The police said that the three accused were produced in court on Sunday and would remain in police custody till September 1.
Solanki’s dead body was recovered last Monday from Shukla’s shop, Ravindra Impex at Apollo Industrial Estate in Andheri East. Reports from the police state that there were injuries on the head made by some blunt object and was also stabbed in the neck, groin and chest.
Solanki and Shukla have been friends from 2008 and the duo was involved in the latter’s works in the recent years.
Solanki never returned home after he was called to Shukla’s shop on August 18.
The duo then drank alcohol and an argument followed, the police said. “Shukla told us that he did not appreciate Solanki’s closeness to his wife and girlfriend. He also claimed that during the course of their argument, Solanki teased him about his sexual prowess. The accused then attacked Solanki with a hammer in a fit of anger. He used the sharp side of the hammer to stab Solanki,” an official at the MIDC police station said.
The police further added that Shukla locked the shop from outside with the air-conditioning on and got into a Tata Safari car which had Singh and Dubey in it. They first went to Shukla’s house in Marol where he changed his clothes, dumped Solanki’s two cellphones in a bag before giving it Dubey asking him to hide it. He then drove away with Singh. They then went north where they stayed with friends in Nainital and Rishikesh and went to Lucknow where they started to run out of money said DCP (Zone X) Navinchandra Reddy. The police sent their teams to Lucknow and Jaunpur.
The police arrested the duo from Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar on Saturday.
Reddy said, “Prime facie, Shukla has claimed that he killed the deceased because of a financial issue and a personal dispute. We are investigating his claims. The hammer used to kill Solanki is yet to be recovered.”
It has been revealed after investigations that Solanki regularly took money from Shukla for helping him with an ongoing narcotic consumption case which had the latter arrested by the Mumbai police in 2008.