Stock market broker and party-animal Gautam Vora was taken into custody by Mumbai police for allegedly helping history-sheeter Vijay Palande, a key accused in the murder of Delhi-based businessman Arun Kumar Tikku, after he went on a lam from police custody.
Palande was first picked up as a suspect for the murder and finally tracked down and arrested from Churchgate station, on April 11, after he was on the run for over 24 hours.
Investigating officials have already taken into custody over four persons, including a small-time actress and a hooker Simran Sood, who police describe as Palande’s girl friend.
The entire Palande gang, apart from being charged for committing murder of 62-year-old Tikku, now also faces charges of murdering another Delhi-based wannabe film producer Karan Kakkad.
Vora, a familiar face in party-circuits adorning newspapers as “socialite gatherings”, was questioned by the police after model Viveka Babajee committed suicide in 2010. Babajee’s parents had charged Vora of mentally torturing the model.
However, this time Vora has been picked up for allegedly helping Palande in hiding from the police after he walked out from a pick-up van in the north-west suburb Andheri. According to police, Palande and his gang used Simran as a honey-trap to lure potential “victims”, and then “target” by promising them an entry into film world.
Police feel that Vora, initially may have been a target of Palande gang, but later on the two developed “relationship”. It is precisely because of his relationship with Simran that Vora had extended help to Palande who reportedly was a known police informer and fixer to various high-profile police officers who masqueraded as ‘encounter specialists’.
Palande’s own brother-in-law, a crime branch officer, is also being investigated in the ongoing inquiries.