Times of India
Mumbai, Jun 2: The crime branch has decided to conduct the identification parade of Maria Susairaj and her boyfriend Jerome Mathew in front of witnesses in the case this week. The two are in police custody in the gruesome murder case of Synergy creative head Neeraj Grover.
Joint police commissioner (crime) Rakesh Maria said, “We have more or less concluded our investigations. We are waiting for forensic reports and the identification parade will be conducted within a week.’’
This is an important part of the investigation as the court police will have to prove that the witnesses had identified the accused in judicial custody soon after the crime took place.
To conduct the identification parade, the a c c u s e d are required to be in jail c u s t o dy. The custody of Maria and Mathew has been given to the police till June 3 by a magistrate’s court.
Thereafter, the police will request the court to send the duo to jail custody so that they can conduct their identification parade in front of witnesses in the case.
There are five key witnesses in the case—Maria’s friend who lent her the car in which she went with Mathew to Manor
to dump the body, Dheeraj Solitaire building’s watchman who saluted Maria and Mathew, a painter who painted the house wall to hide blood stains and a shop owner and his employee from whom Maria purchased a bed cover.
The police will have to depend only on circumstantial evidence as there are no eyewitnesses to the crime. Forensic reports and witness testimonies will be the instruments which the police will rely upon to convict the accused.
On May 7, Grover was stabbed to death by Mathew after he found the former in Maria’s house. The couple later chopped Grover’s body to pieces before disposing it off in Manor and Bhayander.