NE NEWS SERVICE
SURAT, SEPT 14
A woman from Thailand was arrested on Monday for allegedly killing her friend, a compatriot whose charred body was found earlier this month in a flat here in Gujarat, a police official said.
The accused, who was facing financial problems, killed her 27-year-old friend with the intention of stealing the latter’s money and valuables, Surat Police Commissioner Ajay Tomar told reporters.
The two women from Thailand lived in separate apartments in the Magadalla locality here.
On September 6, the victim’s charred body was found in her flat, with its door locked from outside.
The police initially registered a case of accidental death. After an investigation into the incident, the police found evidence that the woman was killed and hence, registered a murder case, the official said.
The accused was caught on a CCTV camera sneaking out of the victim”s house on the night of the incident, he said.
“We already had a suspicion that the victim was murdered, but we needed strong evidence. So, her friends were interrogated. We also noticed that the victim’s mobile phone and gold chain were missing. We checked the CCTV footage around the house on the night of the incident and found the suspicious movement of the accused,” Tomar said.
During questioning, the accused initially tried to mislead the police, he said.
“She was caught on CCTV leaving the victim’s house with her face covered. She confessed to returning to the victim”s house within an hour of the incident, but said she did so to bring beer cans from there,” he said.
During the further probe into the case, an auto-rickshaw driver told the police that the accused gave him a plastic bag and asked him to throw it as it contained garbage.
He, however, accidentally carried the bag to his home and when his wife opened it, she found a blanket and pillow in it. She also found two mobile phones inside the pillow which belonged to the victim, Tomar said.
The police recovered keys of the victim’s flat from the accused’s house, where the gold chain of the deceased was also found in a rice container, he said.
“During questioning, the accused confessed she was in a bad financial state for the past few months and had borrowed money from many people to send it back home in Thailand,” the official said.
She learnt that the victim was going to send money home and so, she went to the latter’s house on the night of the incident to ask for some cash, he said.
“She made the victim smoke an intoxicating substance in a hookah. When the victim fainted, the accused took her gold jewellery and mobile phones. She then set her ablaze and locked the house from outside while leaving,” Tomar said.
