Panaji, Oct 11: Perfume researcher Monika Ghurde's alleged murderer Rajkumar Singh has revealed that he undressed her to film her in the nude after smothering her with the intention of later blackmailing her into silence. Police said they were still questioning him to ascertain if he had assaulted her sexually.
Rajkumar, 21, a native of Bathinda, Punjab, was a former watchman at Sapana Raj Valley at Sangolda, where Ghurde's body was found. He was arrested on Sunday afternoon from Bengaluru and brought to Goa by road on a transit warrant.
A senior police officer said that Rajkumar, during his interrogation in Bengaluru, had said that after smothering Ghurde, he thought she was unconscious. "We still don't know whether Singh had actually filmed Ghurde," the officer said.
Rajkumar told cops that after smothering her, he went into the kitchen, boiled two eggs and ate them, thinking she would wake up. But, as Ghurde was still 'unconscious', he checked on her and realised she had died, he told cops, adding that he then fled from the spot.
Police said that Rajkumar, who served as security guard at the housing complex till August and was familiar with the layout, is suspected to have entered the compound on Wednesday afternoon by jumping over the rear fence.
He would be produced before the judicial magistrate first class, Mapusa, on Tuesday to seek his police custody for further interrogation.
The Goa police had zeroed in on Rajkumar after they obtained CCTV footage+ of him withdrawing money from an ATM in Porvorim using Ghurde's ATM card. He travelled from Goa to Mangaluru by train and stayed there for a day before boarding a bus to Bengaluru, police added.
Rajkumar told police that he entered Ghurde's flat on Wednesday with the intention of robbing her. He entered the flat, flashed a knife, threatening her to keep quiet. He later tied her hands to the bed at knife-point and took her ATM card and forced her personal identification number (PIN) from her.
While the postmortem on Saturday revealed that Ghurde died due to smothering, the forensics department reserved its opinion on the alleged sexual assault. The post-mortem report had said there were injury marks on her private parts. A serological examination will be conducted at Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Hyderabad.
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