Husband’s Friend Held For Rape Attempt, Murder Of 28-Year-Old Housewife 

Mumbai: In a major breakthrough of a brutal murder of 28-year-old housewife in Colaba in Mumbai, police arrested Hitesh K. Pandit on Sunday. The 23-year-old accused is a friend of the victim's husband who lived in the same building.

Shweta married Mahendra Tandel and was staying in Sundar Nagari in the first floor of a ground-plus-two structure. The ground floor was rented out and the second floor was shared by the accused and Mahendra's brother.

On May 10, the victim Shweta was murdered by Hitesh who slit her throat and attacked her with a knife and a fork after she resisted his suggestive moves. After Mahendra and his brother left for work, the accused came to visit Shweta on the pretext of having breakfast. However, he tried to touch her inappropriately and attempted to rape her. As she tried to raise an alarm he killed her for fear of getting caught.

The incident came to light after Mahendra called up his wife and received no response. He then asked his neighbors to check if anything was wrong. The neighbors found her in pool of blood and alerted the police.

"The accused, seeing no one present in the house, tried to misbehave with the victim. Shweta pushed him and the accused retaliated likewise. She fell and her nose began to bleed. Pandey then picked up a fork and a kitchen knife and stabbed her in the neck multiple times before she could call for help," said Manoj Kumar Sharma, DCP (zone I).

Officials said that the accused then dragged the body to the bathroom, cleaned the stains and then returned to his work as usual without giving any hint of an untoward incident.

During the course of investigation, the accused also mislead the officials by giving false stories saying that he found the slippers of an unknown person outside Shweta’s house. The police questioned the victim’s husband, his brother and Hitesh, but the beans were spilled after constable Pravin Bhalekar grew suspicious of Hitesh’s behaviour.