Starlet, Navy officer held for killing TV producer

CRIME OF PASSION? The victim, Neeraj Grover (L), was allegedly having an affair with actress Marria.

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Mumbai: A 27-year-old Kannada film actress and her boyfriend, a naval officer, have been arrested for the sensational murder of a senior official of a Mumbai television production company.

The actress, Monika Susayraj, popularly known as Marria, was arrested from Mumbai and the naval officer, Lieutenant M L Jerome Mathew, was nabbed from Kochi in Kerala.

Mathew is currently attached as an aeronautical engineer with the Kochi Naval Base, Kerala, Mumbai's joint police commissioner Rakesh Maria announced on Wednesday evening.

Mathew and Marria allegedly killed 25-year-old Neeraj A Grover - the creative head of Synergy Adlabs and a producer of the TV show Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain - on 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 a love twist to the case.

Marria has acted in at least four Kannada movies and also worked in the popular teleserial Mahabharata from the BTF.

She had apparently come to Mumbai late last year, looking for work in the entertainment industry. That's when she met Grover and grew friendly with him.

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

Police say on May 7, Grover visited Marria's home to seek help in shifting to his new residence and said he wanted to stay over at her house for some time.

That evening, Mathew who was in Kochi, called up Marria and Grover answered the cell phone.

Mathew, a childhood friend of Marria, 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.

According to police, upon seeing Grover in Marria's bedroom, an enraged Mathew battered him to death, while Marria looked on.

Later that morning, he went out and purchased a large knife, two sports bags and two cans of kerosene and tried to dispose of the body. He chopped Grover's body into small pieces and stuffed them 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.

Mathew was caught when one of Grover’s friends called up and Marria answered. She mumbled that Grover had "gone out" and left his cellphone behind. 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.