Mumbai lawyer Pallavi Purkayastha's killer who jumped parole in 2016 arrested in Jammu and Kashmir

Sajjad Mughal, the security guard who had confessed killing Pallavi Purkayastha , a young advocate, in her Mumbai apartment in Wadala in 2012 has been arrested in Jammu and Kashmir, according to several media reports.

Mughal was untraceable for the last two years and was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir by the crime branch of Mumbai Police on the Leh-Srinagar Highway on Tuesday, CNN-News 18 reported.

#BREAKING | Pallavi Purkayastha murder convict Sajjad Mughal, who had jumped parole and fled, nabbed by police in J&K pic.twitter.com/YR21YcFU7Y

— News18 (@CNNnews18) October 10, 2017

Mughal was sentenced to life in jail in 2014 two years after he confessed his crime to the police officials, NDTV reported. He had left a jail in Maharashtra’s Nasik in 2016 March on parole to visit his unwell mother, however, he never returned.

Talking to CNN-News18, Pallavi Purkayastha’s father Atanu lauded the Mumbai Police who initiated the investigation of finding Mughal after his sudden disappearance. He, however, questioned the court’s decision to approve Mughal’s parole and said that the court shouldn’t have approved his application as he had already confessed his crime and was sentenced to life.

Pallavi was found in a pool of blood at her rented flat in ‘Himalayan Heights’ building at Wadala in central Mumbai by her live-in partner Avik Sengupta (26), also a lawyer. Her parents are both IAS officials and reside in Delhi.

Pallavi’s body had multiple stab injuries, which indicated that she hadstruggled to save herself. When Sengupta returned home on the day of the murder at around 5:30 am, he found that the door was slightly opened. He went inside and found the blood-soaked body of Pallavi with her throat slit, following which he informed the police.

The victim had reportedly called her boyfriend late on Wednesday night saying that there was no electricity in the house.

According to the police, the security guard at the building had reportedly gone to the house with an electrician and he murdered her after she resisted his advances.

Pallavi had reportedly made an attempt to escape and bloodstains were found at multiple locations in the house. She had even rung her neighbour’s doorbell multiple times but no one answered.

With inputs from PTI