Hema Upadhyay murder: UP STF detains key suspects from Varanasi

Varanasi/Mumbai: In a major development in Hema Upadhyay murder case, Uttar Pradesh's Special Task Force sleuths have detained two suspects from Varanasi on Monday. These two include the main suspect - Sadhu Rajbhar.

"Rajbhar had called up Hema to meet her saying that he has some evidence against her husband," police said.

A Mumbai Police team which is probing the double murder of installation artist Hema Upadhyay and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani had gone to Uttar Pradesh as it suspected that the culprits must have taken shelter there.

The Baroda-born artist was estranged from her husband Chintan, also an artist, and the couple had filed for divorce in 2010.

Hema had in 2013 filed a harassment case against Chintan, alleging he painted obscene pictures of women on the walls of their matrimonial home in Mumbai. Bhambani had appeared for her in the case.

According to police, the bodies of Hema (43) and Bhambhani (65), their hands and feet tied with ropes, were recovered from a drain in suburban Kandivali on Saturday night. The bodies were stuffed in two cardboard boxes.

Their samples have been sent for chemical analysis and their autopsy reports are awaited, the senior official said.