Kakkad murder case: Simran Sood files bail application

Sood and Palande had befriended Kakkad to allegedly grab his property, police said, adding that Palande had later come to know that Kakkad was into cricket betting and had lost Rs 2 crore.

Thereafter, Palande and others hatched a conspiracy to eliminate him and usurp his property, they said.

When police arrested Palande in the murder case of Delhi-based businessman Arunkumar Tikku, he revealed that he had also killed Kakkad.

In her bail application, Sood claimed that she had no role to play in the murder case of Kakkad and that police had also failed to link her with the murder case.

She was arrested on April 26 last year for the alleged involvement in the Tikku murder case and she was later arrested in the Kakkad murder case. Police have arrested Palande, Sood and Dhananjay Shinde for kidnapping and murder of Kakkad.

According to police, Palande became friends with Tikku's son Anuj a couple of years ago. He had plans to take over the three flats-clubbed into one. The flats are in Anuj's name.

However, he saw the plan failing when Arunkumar flew down to Mumbai from Delhi and threw out Dhananjay and Manoj, who Palande had kept in the flat after making Anuj sign a two-year lease and license agreement with a German woman, they said.

On that fateful day, while Palande took Anuj to Goa in his Mercedes Benz, Manoj and Dhananjaya brutally murdered Arunkumar. Palande, during interrogation in the Tikku murder case, confessed that he killed Kakkad and dumped his body on Mumbai's outskirts.

Police later recovered decomposed body parts of Kakkad from forests at Kumbharli Ghat in Chiplun in Ratnagiri district. Money and some personal reasons led Palande to kill Kakkad, police said.