New Delhi: You can gauge a killer's ruthlessness from the cold calmness with which a murder is executed, right down to the cautious disposal of the victim's corpse. Starlet Meenakshi Thapa's murderers displayed a similar streak of ruthlessness.
Preeti Surin and Amit Jaiswal - the alleged killers - travelled across Uttar Pradesh to find a spot to get rid of Meenakshi's severed head and the chopper that was used for the gruesome purpose, after throwing her headless torso in the septic tank of Preeti's house in Allahabad.
A joint team of policemen from Mumbai and Allahabad recovered the torso from the septic tank on Wednesday.
Meenakshi's brother, who arrived in Allahabad on Wednesday, identified her body on the basis of the clothes. Being in a septic tank, the body had not decomposed much.
But what preceded Thapa's undignified burial was a cold, ruthless and calculated execution of a macabre conspiracy.
The killer duo, who had met the smalltime actress on the sets of Madhur Bhandarkar's Heroine, asked her to accompany them to Gorakhpur, promising her a modelling assignment.
But they instead took her to their hometown Allahabad luring her with the assurance that they would introduce her to a Bhojpuri film producer. S.K. Yadav, SP (city) Allahabad said the killers had admitted that the Allahabad detour was a last-minute decision. The three reached the Sangam city at 4 pm on March 14.
Meenakshi was then straightaway taken to Preeti's Darbhanga Colony house, that is, an outhouse of a bungalow of which her father is the caretaker.
The house was zeroed-in on as the scene of crime as Preeti's father was not in the city.
The ransom call for Rs 15 lakh to Meenakshi's family was made on March 14 and the starlet killed the next day, when the family could only muster Rs 60,000. 'On the night of March 15, the accused first strangulated Meenakshi - a fact confirmed by her autopsy.
To ensure they didn't leave any blood on their tracks, Preeti and Jaiswal waited for six hours before chopping off the head, counting on post mortem blood congealment,' Yadav said.
The torso was then dumped in the septic tank located in the bungalow's compound. The police officer said the two waited for daybreak before executing the next part of their plan.
They left for Lucknow in an air-conditioned Volvo bus carrying Meenakshi's head in a polythene bag. Enroute, they got down at Phaphamau - a satellite township of Allahabad - where they disposed of the chopper. 'From Phaphamau, they took a train to Varanasi, throwing the head away on the way,' Yadav said.
On the very same night, that is March 16, they took a train back to Mumbai. A Mumbai Police team will now be taking the accused towards Varanasi to locate the head, Yadav added.
