Horror and shock gripped a team of Delhi Police when its search for a missing 30-year-old bartender lead it to his colleague's South Delhi house where his body was found chopped in three pieces and stored inside a refrigerator on Saturday night.
Vipin Joshi had been missing since Monday. The police suspected his chef friend Badal Mandal's role in the disappearance as he also went missing the same day. "The house door was locked. When we got inside, we found the refrigerator's door slightly ajar. We saw signs of blood that had dripped out. We also noticed a trouser, soaked in blood, kept nearby," said a police officer. The police suspect that the crime might have been committed a couple of days ago.
The team found Joshi's head, and also his torso cut into two pieces and stuffed inside the refrigerator. A meat cleaver suspected to be used in the ghastly crime was recovered from the house and sent for forensic examination. Some liquor bottles were also found from the rented accommodation located in Said-Ul-Azaib, an urban village in upscale Saket area.
Joshi lived with his brother in a rented house in the adjacent lane. He worked at FIO Country Kitchen & Bar at the Garden of Five Senses, a 20-acre leisure space run by the Delhi government for the public to socialise and unwind.
Mandal worked at the same restaurant where they were called "best friends". A police team will be sent to Kolkata where his mobile phone's last location was seen. His phone is now switched off. Mandal had sent his wife and children to their home in West Bengal last month. The police said that the motive behind the gruesome murder was not clear. The sequence of the crime is to be established. The police is questioning other workers at the restaurant.
"The trays in the fridge had been removed to fit the body pieces.," said a police officer.
"We informed the police after we noticed a strong stench coming from the house. I did not know Mandal personally but had seen him once drinking at our house along with my brother. My brother came to Delhi in 2007 and started working as a bartender," said Mahesh, the victim's brother.
HORROR IN SOUTH DELHI HOUSE
- Vipin Joshi had been missing for a week. His body pieces found in chef friend’s fridge
- A meat cleaver, a blood-soaked trouser recovered from Badal Mandal’s house
- Accused likely to have fled to Kolkata. A police team is being sent to arrest him
