Times of India

Mumbai, Jun 4: “This would have never happened had he listened to his parents. We had told him to avoid Maria as she was from the film world,’’ said Jerome Joseph, the distraught father of Emile Jerome, the main accused in the Neeraj Grover murder case.

The 70-year-old retired bank clerk has been in the city for a week, meeting lawyers. Jerome was arrested along with his girlfriend Maria Monica Susairaj for killing Grover.

A sobbing Joseph, who wondered how and why people were referring to his son as “Mathew” when it did not figure anywhere in his name, told TOI, “My wife and I cannot believe the police’s claim that my son would kill somebody so ruthlessly and chop Grover’s body into pieces. He was so humble, gentle and a complete family person that he used to call his parents at least two-three times daily.’’

Joseph said he spoke to Jerome last on May 17, when he called from his naval base in Kochi informing that the Mumbai police had come to take him for some inquiries as Susairaj’s friend Grover had gone missing.

Joseph said he had gone to meet Jerome in Kochi on May 8 but his colleagues told him that Mathew had gone to Mumbai to meet Maria. “They told me that Maria had urgently called him to Mumbai. I understood he must have gone to meet Maria. I got angry and that is why I didnot speak to him when he returned to Kochi on May 8 night. The next day, I left for Mysore and everything was fine until May 21.’’

“On May 21, officers of Mumbai police called me at my residence and informed me that they had arrested Mathew in a murder case. I was stunned and my wife Thankamma collapsed. Unfortunately, the next day, my younger son Nirmal was to appear for his last BA exams, which he could not do well after he heard the news. I am ruined. I spent whatever I earned on my two sons. Now, I don’t even have money to fight his case. We belong to a middle-class family. None of us has ever gone to a police station,’’ he said.’’

Joseph said that last August, Maria’s father —through a common friend—had sent a proposal to “us’’. “But as she was from the film world, we did not like her. Also, she was from a rich background and we were from the middle class. Maria had come behind us to the church in Mysore several times, trying to speak to us and convince us.’’

“Jerome told us that he met her on a social networking site. But we were not keen on the match,’’ said the father.

Jerome had promised his mother to break the relationship. “We even told him to change his mobile number, go to church and read the Bible. He agreed but she managed to track him down.” Joseph, a clerk with a bank, took voluntary retirement in 2000 to concentrate on the careers of his two sons—Mathew and Nirmal. The family hails from Wayanad in Kerala. Joseph said Jerome studied in St Mathias School in Mysore and was always at the top. After Std X, he passed with 90% in Plus II. He then got admission in the NDA and opted for the navy.

Joseph, who is staying with his relatives in Mahim, said he was finding it difficult to cope with the expenses. He heaved a sigh of relief when Jerome joined the navy. But on May 17, when a phone call from the police shattered his dreams. “I often thought I was the happiest person on earth, but now I cannot sleep, thinking about my son’s plight.’’ When he met his son at jail, the latter told him, “I don’t remember anything. Please concentrate on my brother’s studies.”

I’VE NOTHING TO DO WITH MURDER: MARIA

Mumbai: A magistrate’s court on Tuesday sent Jerome Mathew and Maria Susairaj—the duo charged with the murder of media executive Neeraj Grover—to judicial custody till June 16.

Susairaj was represented in court by criminal lawyer Nitin Pradhan, who also filed for her bail in a sessions court on Tuesday. The bail application is interesting as Susairaj has argued in it that she had nothing to do with the murder of Grover and that the other charge against her, that of destruction of evidence under Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), is a bailable one.

Susairaj further stated in the application that she had been cooperating with the police ever since her arrest and even “assisted in the investigation’’. The bail plea will be heard by a sessions court on Wednesday.

Mathew and Susairaj were taken to court with their heads covered to protect their identities. Pradhan pleaded that the hearing be held incamera but the request was turned down by the court. While in court, both Mathew and Susairaj gesticulated to suggest that they wanted to say something, but a prosecutor present in court told them to speak to their defence advocates.

For the first time, Mathew was represented by an advocate, Ishwar Prasad Bagaria, in court.

Even before the hearing began, some policemen tried to keep the media out of the courtroom but the newspersons insisted that they would leave only if there was a judicial order to hold the proceedings in-camera.

The last time the duo was produced in court, for an extension of their remand on May 29, policemen had refused to let any journalists listen to the court proceedings even without a valid order for the same.

According to the police, Susairaj has already confessed to her role in the crime before a magistrate. Now, with the transfer of the duo to judicial custody, the police will be in a position to conduct an identification parade at the Arthur Road jail where key witnesses in the case could be called to identify the accused.

Susairaj’s brother, Richard, was present in court at the time of the hearing and was later seen having a discussion with Pradhan.

“I am feeling better now,” said Richard, replying to a query on how he was feeling.