Kannada starlet, naval officer nabbed for killing lover

Mumbai, May 21 (IANS) A 27-year-old Kannada movie actress Marria alias Monika Susayraj and her boyfriend, a naval officer, have been arrested for the sensational murder of a senior official of a Mumbai television production company a fortnight ago.

The accused naval officer is Lieutenant M.L. Jerome Mathew, 25, currently attached as an aeronautical engineer with the Kochi Naval Base, Kerala, Mumbai's joint police commissioner Rakesh Maria announced here Wednesday evening.

Mathew has been arrested from Kochi.

Mathew and Marria allegedly killed Neeraj A. Grover, 25, the creative head of Synergy Adlabs, May 7 at Marria's flat in Malad, a northwest suburb of Mumbai, the police officer said.

Grover was earlier employed with Ekta Kapoor's Balaji Telefilms Ltd (BTF).

The police suspect the murder to be an outcome of "a love triangle".

Marria has acted in at least four Kannada movies and also worked in the popular teleserial "Mahabharata" from the BTF. She became friendly with Grover and later they turned closer. She had come to Mumbai in search of a break in the Mumbai entertainment industry late last year.

Marria lived at Solitaire Apartments on Chincholi Bunder Road in Malad while Grover lived at the Four Bungalows area of Andheri.

On May 7, Grover visited Marria's home to seek her help in shifting to his new residence and also wanted to stay over at her home for sometime, the police said.

That evening, Mathew who was in Kochi, called up Marria and Grover happened to answer the cellphone.

Mathew, a childhood friend of Marria with whom he had developed an intimate relationship, became suspicious and made inquiries about Grover from her.

On May 8, he boarded an early morning flight to Mumbai and went to Marria's Malad flat.

Upon seeing Grover in Marria's bedroom, Mathew flew into a rage and battered him to death, while Marria watched, according to the police.

Later that morning, he went out and purchased a large knife, two sports bags and two cans of kerosene.

Mathew went about systematically trying to dispose of the body. He chopped Grover's body into small pieces and stuffed these into bags. He loaded them, carried the kerosene cans and drove in Marria's Santro car to Manor, a coastal village barely four km away.

There, at a desolate spot he burnt the bags containing the body pieces and went to the airport to catch a flight back to Kochi, according to the police.

The game was apparently up when one of Grover's friends called up - and Marria answered. She mumbled that Grover had "gone out" forgetting his cellphone. The friend came and picked up the cellphone a couple of days later.

The following week, Amarnath Grover, the deceased man's father, called up to enquire his whereabouts since he had not come home for more than four days. After talking to his son's friend, he lodged a missing person complaint with the Malad police station.

Marria was summoned for interrogation where she broke down and confessed the crime before the sleuths of the Crime Branch. They arrested her and nabbed Mathew from Kochi.