Man Pummels Mom To Death With Baseball Bat For Not Giving Him Her House

A 43-year-old man in India killed his 73-year-old mother in her home using a baseball bat and then dumped her body in a valley Tuesday.

Police arrested the unemployed son Sachin Kapur and his 25-year-old servant, Lalukumar Mandal, from an apartment in a Mauli building for the murder of Veena Kapur in her Juhu, Mumbai, home, The Times of India (TOI) reported.

Mandal is accused of helping dispose of the victim's body, which has not yet been found, in Matheran in the neighboring Raigad district.

The incident allegedly occurred due to a property dispute, The Print reported.

The murder came to light when Veena's elder son, who resides in the United States, called the security guard of her building and asked him to visit her apartment as he could not get in touch with his mother over the phone Tuesday, police said.

"When the guard failed to get a response, the son asked him to file a missing complaint with police. Based on the complaint, inspector Sanjay Pawar and the detection staff visited the flat late Tuesday night. After gathering information, they tried to locate the victim through her mobile location," police said, according to TOI.

An official said "the location of her mobile was found near her building while that of her son was in Panvel," according to The Print.

The next day, Sachin and his servant were brought to the police station.

"During the interrogation, he revealed that he killed his mother in a fit of rage after hitting a baseball bat multiple times on her head. He told them that there was a property dispute going on among them due to which he committed the crime and dumped her body into a river near Matheran in Raigad district," the official, who was not named, was quoted as saying by The Print.

Mandal was also present in the home at the time of the murder, police said.

Sachin told police that Mandal helped him pack his mother's body in a carton before they drove to Matheran Tuesday evening to dump the body, an officer told TOI.

The victim had alleged that Sachin wanted to anger her so she would be forced to leave her 2,000-square-foot home and give it over to him, according to TOI.

In 2019, Veena filed a suit in the Bombay High Court (HC), asking for orders to restrain her son from entering the apartment. In her petition, Veena said she did not just suffer physical harassment but also underwent mental agony and torture.

According to her suit in the HC, Veena got married in 1969 and bought an apartment in JVPD Scheme. Her suit stated that she was divorced. While confirming the divorce in 2001, the HC learned that she was "the lawful owner of the matrimonial home, but, at the same time, gave her ex-husband the right to stay in the house."

Veena's plea to the HC was that Sachin was "illegally occupying the flat only with the sole objective of causing harassment." She alleged he would play music loud at night, make the bathroom dirty and "threaten" her.

With the help of Veena's lawyer, Anuuj Narula of Jhangiani Narula and Associates, the mother had pleaded that because of his acts of "cruelty," she had "disowned" Sachin as her son and wanted to restrain his entry to her home. Veena also sought to restrain him from selling or creating any third-party rights to the apartment.

Sachin had firmly denied the allegations in court in August 2019, saying that he was residing on his father's side.

The HC had allowed Veena to install CCTV cameras "in her bedroom, at the entrance of the bedroom and in the common area, which would include the living room."

In 2021 and in March this year, the HC restrained the son from allowing a stranger to enter and live in the house.

Police, who are still searching for the victim's body which was reportedly dumped in a valley, have booked the son and his help for murder and causing the disappearance of evidence of an offense committed, among other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).