Crimes Of Passion: Free Read | DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS
The gruesome murder and dismemberment of TV executive Neeraj Grover
At 7.30 a.m. on 7 May 2008, Maria Monica Susairaj heard her doorbell ring. Still groggy from having slept late the previous night, Maria stumbled to the door. She had finally got possession of her sparsely furnished flat at 201, Dheeraj Solitaire—a plush residential high rise in the suburbs of Malad in Mumbai—only a day before. Having arrived in Mumbai a few days prior, she wasn’t expecting any visitors. Little did she know that what she was unlocking was not just the door of her newly acquired abode but a sequence of events that would change her life forever. At 27 and yet to shed the prefix ‘aspiring’, the model and actress who grew up nurturing dreams of making it big in tinsel town was getting increasingly desperate. It was her third stint in Mumbai, each of them justified as just ‘one last shot’ at stardom to revive a career that had stalled. With just three films to her credit—all back in her native state of Karnataka—and fearing that life was flying past her, Maria must have felt that it was now or never.
Maria Susairaj was the daughter of a real estate tycoon, among the most prominent in Mysore. From the age of five, she had taken to dance and was soon the toast of her school. This passion grew, and between 2002 and 2004, she acted in three Kannada films—Joot (2002), Excuse Me (2003) and Ok Saar Ok (2004). All of these were duds, in part owing to her ordinary acting skills. Where she did excel though was in the song and dance sequences. Not satisfied with her own performances, she enrolled at a dance studio in her hometown to improve her skill. She went on to briefly date the dance instructor, who later helped her find a toehold in Mumbai. At that time, the neatly organized streets of Mysore, the overarching trees and the closely knit Christian community created a web that enmeshed her spirit. Armed with a confident spirit, she made her way to Mumbai for the first time in 2005. After a three-month acting course spanning several classes, she tried to get the break she craved.
Mumbai and its rush have their own charm—a charm that can drown you out, or offer the freedom that many coming from small towns crave. It offers freedom from prying eyes of a small town, where everyone knows everyone and the world feels small. Life in the big city without the support of family is difficult for anyone. Landing the right contacts is often a deciding factor in a city full of glorified touts, schemers and self-styled agents. For Maria, her entry into this world came through a boy named Neeraj. Hailing from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh,
the 25-year-old was relatively new to the city as well. The son of doting parents, Amarnath and Neelam Grover, left the dreary existence and roadside dhabas of the Hindi heartland and chose to embrace the glittering lights and Café-Coffee-Days of Mumbai. Living up to the reputation of being a casanova, Neeraj would unabashedly size up the nimble nymphs who gushed about his area of work with a twinkle in his eye. This twinkle would rarely go unrequited. You could count his relationships on the beads of a rosary. Having worked with Balaji Telefilms Limited and rising quickly up the professional ladder as a creative producer, he was not short of offers. He soon found himself at Synergy Adlabs Media Ltd, another production house. This was in 2008, when the Mumbai entertainment industry was at its peak. It was a city whose media and entertainment industry was awash with cash and offers—a city blissfully unaware of the looming economic meltdown that was to hit mere months later. Maria and Neeraj met for the first time in 2007 during Maria’s second stint in Mumbai. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight. Their paths crossed at the many auditions that Maria was breezing through, hoping for a big break.
In March 2008, Maria reconnected with Neeraj and talked about her intentions to keep trying her luck in Mumbai. This was despite the odds, repeated rejections and her apparent predisposition to failure. Unlike many other small-town girls whose dreams slowly dissipate as they hope for the ‘one break’ that never comes, Maria could afford to keep trying. She always had the family business to fall back on if this didn’t work out. Neeraj got Maria an audition for the role of Draupadi in Balaji Telefilms’ Mahabharata in March 2008. When it was apparent that it was not going to work out, she returned to Mysore. Neeraj lured Maria back to Mumbai, repeatedly promising that opportunities would be plenty and that something or the other would work out soon. He also made no bones about the fact that he wanted her in Mumbai not just to fulfil her dreams. He was in love with her. Torn between her dreams which seemed tantalizingly close and her plans of settling down in Mysore, Maria chose to cling to both.
She landed in Mumbai for her third stint on 29 April 2008 and caught up with Neeraj the same day. They picked up right where they had left off, this time without any inhibitions. Neeraj’s close friend Nishant Lal later told the police that between 29 April 2008 and 6 May 2008, Neeraj and Maria met each other every day. He also mentioned how one evening he saw them kissing, while dancing at the D’Ultimate Pub.
However, it was not all mushy between the couple. Maria, Neeraj’s friends later recalled, was keen on securing a role that Neeraj had promised to get her. However, they also said that she was beginning to doubt whether he was the right man for the job. Their relationship was a curious one. While Neeraj was prepared to go any lengths to please his newly found ‘mate’, Maria was clearly on a mission and he merely represented a stepping stone for her. Being
lured to Mumbai only to realize that Neeraj wasn’t all that he promised was something that was playing havoc with Maria’s mind.
On 6 May 2008, Maria got her new flat. That evening, Neeraj didn’t hang out with his friends at their usual coffee shop. Instead, he went to see Maria. When his friends called him to join them, he said that Maria needed his help with shifting. Later, when his roommates called him to attend a festive dinner at their shared flat, he declined and gave the same excuse. That was the last time his friends heard from him. Later, Maria’s testimony at the court offered a different narration of the events that transpired. She said:
[…] At about 11 pm when I came out from [the] house of my neighbour after taking a bath there, I saw that Neeraj was at the door of my house. I had introduced him to my neighbour… We then entered my house. I asked him as to why he came… He said that he wanted to give help to arrange my house… Though Neeraj was called by his friends to attend the party, he did not go. I had also refused to join him at the party. Neeraj had work in the morning at Malad. So, he had requested me to allow him to stay… I said that it is OK and he stayed…
Perhaps, it was only unpacking that was taking place right up to four that morning. That is when the duo reportedly dozed off exhausted in each other’s arms. One can imagine an eerie calm settling on the flat, broken only by the ebb and flow of the nearby Malad creek. This was until the urgent buzzing of the doorbell pierced through the calmness at 7.30 a.m. on 7 May 2008.
On the other side of the door stood Lieutenant Emile Jerome Mathew. As a young and bright officer, Emile was on the brink of a long and illustrious career with the navy. He and Maria hailed from the same hometown, but came from different worlds. Emile was well-built and surefooted. He excelled not just in academics but also in athletics, and stood out for his good looks and confident nature. Soon after his twelfth standard, Emile attempted to get into one of the many IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) in the country. When he failed, he settled for the four-year naval engineers’ course at INS Shivaji in Lonavala in 2000. He was well respected among his mates, not just because of his tough physique but also for his mild manners and commitment to his work. He was, after all, a stickler for getting a job done well. While he dreamt of being a marine commando, his bosses did not allow it, as he had been trained as an engineer.
No one can fully explain what made Emile and Maria stick together. They had met in 2007 via the now-defunct social networking site Orkut that was all the rage back then. It is often suggested that it was Maria’s sister, Veronica, who nudged them to get together. Perhaps her suggestion was only in jest, and not born out of some gut feeling that the duo would make a good pair. They were soon a serious couple, and even agreed to settle down. It is possible that Emile saw in Maria the possibility of a trophy wife—one he could show off to his friends, a trophy that he had plucked out right from the movie screen. Or maybe there was something in her that really pulled him in. With Emile choosing to keep his counsel throughout the trial and subsequent incarceration, we will never know.
Maria, on the other hand, had previously had a string of relationships. During the trial, she herself admitted that she didn’t take any of her previous relationships seriously. She perhaps saw in Emile a man who was ‘marriage material’—stable, committed and clearly in love with her.
Maria’s parents had no qualms about her marriage with Emile. But Emile had battled with his family to try and convince them that she was the ideal woman for him. It was not surprising that a deeply traditional Catholic family from Kerala’s Wayanad looked disapprovingly on a ‘loose-looking’ girl from the showbiz industry. Her gyrating on-screen moves probably made them squirm in discomfort. That she also hailed from a Catholic family provided little relief. Neither Emile nor his family softened their respective stands about Maria.
Emile and Maria chatted regularly, even if they couldn’t meet as much. He was posted at the INS Garuda Naval Base in Kochi, and she constantly kept moving from Mumbai to Bangalore or Mysore (and vice versa). Nonetheless, plans for their wedding were well underway. Maria is said to have referred to Emile as her fiancé, when introducing him to her old friends. Emile too made it clear among his mates that he was serious about Maria.
However, all was not well. Maria was two-timing Emile. She had hidden the nature of her relationship with Neeraj from Emile, only mentioning that he was helping her scout for roles. The two men had never met. In her confession before a magistrate, she made it sound like it was Neeraj who was the eager one in the relationship. But there was no evidence suggesting that she was only a reluctant participant, playing along for the purpose of securing a role.
Emile was in regular touch with Maria, and had spoken to her several times on 6 May 2008, the last being at 11.30 p.m. For much of the time that Neeraj was at her flat, Maria was on the phone with Emile. On the call, Emile heard a male voice laughing in the background. Neeraj may have acted cocky and indignant. Emile reportedly proceeded to enquire who was in her flat at such a late hour. Maria told him it was Neeraj, who was helping her move in. She told Emile that he would not be staying over, specifically mentioning that she would ask him to leave. They spoke for nearly an hour. Since her phone battery was low, she asked Emile to call on Neeraj’s phone. She then gave Neeraj’s number to Emile.
‘What kind of boyfriend is he that he needs another man to be with her?’ Neeraj reportedly said while handing over his phone to Maria. That statement probably snapped something within Emile, and that changed his life forever.
At the base, one of his mates found Emile pacing up-and-down and visibly disturbed. Upon enquiry, instead of telling his friend the truth, Emile said that his fiancée needed his help and that he needed to be with her immediately. A ticket on board a 3.45 a.m. Air India flight to Mumbai was booked and Emile asked to borrow a friend’s motorcycle to get to the airport.
His friend, seeing that he was trembling, offered to drop him off. He feared that Emile was in no condition to ride the bike and would end up hurting himself. It was only later that his friend realized that it was not fear but rage that made Emile tremble. Emile left without applying for a leave of absence from his commanding officer, and was standing outside Maria’s door at 7.30 a.m.
There were no independent eyewitnesses for what transpired next, and all we have is Maria’s confessional statement from the court document. This statement was very obviously offered with an aim of trying to absolve herself of any guilt. Emile marched in to find his fiancée in a flimsy nightdress. Neeraj, who had only just woken up, was lying naked on her bed. ‘He directly entered my house. I followed Emile as he marched straight to the bedroom,’ Maria recounted. Based on her statement, Neeraj then cockily proceeded to say, ‘Is this your boyfriend?’
Neeraj mistakenly thought that it was the right time for him to resume his cockiness from the previous night. But Emile was furious. ‘Immediately, thereafter, Emile started giving fist blows to Neeraj. Both started fighting with each other. I could not control them,’ Maria recalled before the judge. She said that she tried to break up the fight only to be thrown away. She injured herself in the process, and was left with ‘deep gashes’ on her palms.2 A medical examination later revealed that these gashes were caused by a knife—the knife wielded by Emile. Neeraj (a creative producer) was no match for Emile (a trained combatant, considered tough even by Navy standards), and was soon overpowered. Emile then rushed to grab a knife. As Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria later recalled, Emile then stabbed Neeraj several times in the chest and abdomen.3 He could hardly have been exaggerating. By the time Maria, who had been thrown to the floor in the melee, got up, she saw that Neeraj was already stabbed.
‘Maria! Maria!’ Neeraj reportedly called as he fell to the floor. But it was all over in a matter of minutes. Special Judge M.W. Chandwani, in his order convicting Emile of culpable homicide with the intent, said: ‘To find a young man with his young fiancée, that too during odd hours, obviously, for a fiancé is a provoking situation, to lose his self-control. So, a prudent man will lose his self-control… was impelled to lose his control to find a young man with his fiancée’s home during [an] odd hour.’
As Neeraj’s dead body lay next to them, Emile and Maria made love—a love that was laden with emotions in each thrust. Then they did it again—this time in the bathroom. In her confession, Maria said that she was raped. All this happened while Neeraj lay in a pool of blood that slowly darkened from red to deep maroon. The blood on the mattress and the wall had already dried up.
But the horrors were only just beginning…
Neeraj was scheduled to meet television actress Barsha Chatterjee at seven that morning. She noticed that Neeraj had failed to meet their appointment. At that time, she didn’t think it was anything serious. The first to panic was Neeraj’s mother, Neelam. Every morning and evening Neelam would call her son unfailingly, as mothers are wont to do. When the first call at around 10.00 a.m. remained unanswered, she thought that maybe he had overslept. Maybe he had kept his phone aside to take a shower or was preoccupied with something else. But then half an hour later, the next call too went unanswered and then the next and the next… What was a mild concern soon became a worry—a major worry turning into full-blown panic.
At around noon, Maria called Nishant (Neeraj’s close friend, with whom she was acquainted) to tell him that Neeraj left her home the previous night at 1.30 a.m. but had left his phone behind. She asked him to come and collect it. By 1.00 p.m., Maria called a friend, asking whether she could borrow his Santro car. She promised to return it before 9.30 p.m. Maria visited the Hypercity Mall in Malad and bought rexine sports bags, a fresh set of drapes, room freshener and a bread knife. She later told the police that she was acting under duress, after being threatened by Emile with dire consequences. However, she betrayed none of that duress as she calmly went about shopping.
The body was chopped to ‘pieces’, Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria said while addressing a press conference on 21 May 2008. This was two weeks after the murder took place, and the case had finally been cracked. It took Emile four hours to butcher Neeraj’s body, which he said was slow because the knife quickly lost its edge. Emile sawed through the tough tissue in the bathroom, while keeping the tap running to ensure the blood was quickly washed off. Maria helped him put the pieces in the bags that she had purchased from the mall.
News channels later reported that Neeraj’s body was chopped into 300 pieces, a figure that even shocked the trial judge. He questioned how the reporters carved the figure out of thin air. The reality was that it was around 6–8 pieces. Emile had carefully sawed off the joints to fit them into the suitcases. Emile loaded the body parts into the bags. Maria proceeded to clean the house, changed the drapes and dumped the kitchen knife in a bathroom drain pipe, hoping it would never be found. They even called a painter who assured them of a visit the next day.
At around 4.30 p.m., the duo loaded the bags into the borrowed car while the building’s security guard curiously looked on. They lugged the heavy bags, each holding one end, and loaded them in the car before driving off towards Manorwada (far outside the city). They bought a jerry can of petrol at Bhayandar, and a lighter along the way. They set Neeraj’s remains alight whilst making sure that there was no one who noticed them. When Maria later took the police to the spot, all that remained was pieces of his rib cage and skull; bits of burnt cloth; beads and a metal button; and a chain and arm band. The police relied on these remains for further investigation.
By 9.30 p.m., Maria and Emile were back at the Malad flat. They were confident that they had successfully pulled off the most outrageous cover-up. In reality, they did leave behind a trail of crumbs for Rakesh Maria and the Crime Branch to follow. Maria carried Neeraj’s mobile phone wherever she went. This proved to be a fatal mistake. By that time, Neeraj’s family and friends were panicking. From around 10.00 a.m. until 9.30 p.m., there were around 130 missed calls on Neeraj’s phone. All except one went unanswered. This was a call from Neeraj’s sister Shika’s phone. She was desperately trying to get in touch all day. But all she heard was a breezy bustling and some distant voices before the call got disconnected. The call was accidentally received as the phone lay in Maria’s pocket while she was picking up the Santro Car. It was the phone that finally helped the police unravel the case, and call Maria and Emile’s bluff. Until then, Maria played her part to the T.
Neeraj’s friends Nishant Lal and cousin Nishant Grover arrived at Maria’s flat to collect his mobile phone. Rather than welcoming them to the flat, Maria chose to meet them downstairs. She handed Neeraj’s phone to Nishant, and accompanied him to the Malad police station to lodge a missing complaint. She even cried when asked about his whereabouts.
After returning from there, Maria and Emile spent some time together carefully discussing what they would tell the police. They needed to ensure that their stories matched, and didn’t arouse suspicion. The next morning, she and Emile gave their statements to the police feigning ignorance of Neeraj’s whereabouts. They were pretty confident that their cover-up had worked. The couple even had lunch outside, and Emile returned to the naval base on 9 May 2008.
Meanwhile, Neeraj’s family began frantically looking for him. His father Amarnath flew down from Kanpur and began scouting unclaimed bodies. He looked alongside railway tracks and scanned random faces in the street in a bid to find his son. He was soon putting up posters with the help of friends and family, hoping people would come forward and offer clues about his son. With the police making no headway, Amarnath approached the Crime Branch of the Mumbai Police. The Crime Branch then began a parallel investigation.
When initially questioned by the police, Maria claimed she was shopping in Dadar the afternoon after the murder. When it was presented to her that a call had been received on Neeraj’s phone in Andheri and not Dadar, she began to break down. The location of Neeraj’s mobile at around 7.30 p.m. was shown to be on the way to Manorwada, something Maria was unable to explain to the police. Two weeks was all it took for the Crime Branch to have her singing like a canary. The police built a case that this was a pre-planned conspiracy by Maria and Emile to eliminate Neeraj. They showed the motive to be Maria feeling used, since Neeraj had failed to secure her the promised role. The most incriminating bit of evidence to support the ‘conspiracy’ theory was that Emile had actually booked his flight to Mumbai at 9.00 p.m. that night, much before Neeraj had come to Maria’s flat. As mentioned earlier, it was only at around 11.00 p.m. that Neeraj had ended up at her doorstep.
Did Maria call Neeraj over despite knowing that Emile would be arriving the following morning? It was a theory that the judge didn’t buy. The judge stressed that everything about Emile’s departure, the murder and subsequent cover-up seemed to be spur-of-the-moment decisions rather than a well-planned conspiracy.
Throughout the trial, Emile maintained a stoic expression. He only winced sometimes, if the lawyers made arguments that did not reflect the sequence of events as he had witnessed them. The trial judge too noted that ‘whenever, there was any irregularity on behalf of the prosecution, [Jerome] promptly objected’.
Maria’s confession retraced the entire sequence. She withdrew her confession later, claiming that it was extracted under pressure. She pleaded innocence and even offered an alibi.
On 1 July 2011, a little more than three years after the murder—after the testimonies and cross examination of 48 witnesses—Accused No. 1 Maria Monica Susairaj was sentenced to three years imprisonment for her role in destroying the evidence. She was acquitted of murder and conspiracy to kill Neeraj. This verdict left Neeraj’s friends and family aghast, considering the gruesomeness of the cover-up.
It was her confession, even though it wasn’t accepted as evidence by the sessions court, that helped save her. Maria successfully convinced the court that she had no role in the murder—only in the cover-up. This was despite the prosecution arguing that both Emile and Maria murdered Neeraj. In the absence of eyewitnesses, and with Emile choosing to not take his fiancée down with him, Maria was freed soon after the verdict. She had already served the duration of her sentence.
Accused No. 2 Emile was convicted of culpable homicide with the intent to kill, and sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and three years for destroying evidence. His appeal is still pending before the Bombay High Court, but he completed the duration of his sentence in 2018.
Maria’s life changed forever after this. As of 2019, she was a career criminal along with one Paromita Chakraborty (whom she befriended in jail while under trial). The police said Susairaj and Chakraborty became friends when they were lodged in Byculla prison between 2010 and 2012. In 2015, Maria was arrested by the Vadodara Police for her alleged involvement in the `2.11 crore Haj air ticket scam along with Paromita. In 2018, Maria was arrested again for duping a businessman of `2.72 crore.6 The duo, along with others, had promised to help the businessman obtain a bank loan at low-interest rates. There are seven complaints, mainly deregistered, against Maria and her partners-in-crime Paromita Chakraborty and Anita Vedpathak.
Emile headed home after the period of his sentence elapsed. Perhaps, he finally put his engineering skills to good use. Journalist Meenal Bhagel put together an acclaimed book, Death in Mumbai, on the killing. In an interview a few months after the convictions, she said: ‘Look at the way it all—the killing—became Maria’s fault. She became the big villainess, whereas during my research I found, in certain quarters, a grudging respect for Emile’s actions as he had, after all, found his fiancée with another man. At a time when she was hoping that some doors of opportunity would open for her, Maria opened the door to her downfall. She will probably spend the rest of her life wishing she had done things differently. While the story may gradually fade away from memory, the scars will remain.