Mumbai: Son and wife kills bank manager in Andheri over mental harassment, bad treatment; arrested

A day after the 54-year-old Assistant General Manager of Small Industries Development Bank of India was allegedly murdered by his wife and son in Andheri's Veera Desai Road locality, the latter have revealed that Santankrishnan Seshadri would mentally harass them and threatened to send them for treatment to an institution.

The mother and son – both in custody -- have confessed to the crime and said they were fed up of the discord, the shoddy treatment and Seshadri's unwillingness to help out with the finances, even though he was the sole earning member.

They were produced before a holiday court on Saturday and remanded in police custody for five days.

According to the police, Jaisheela, 52, and her son Arvind, 26, came under the lens after they saw the blood splattered wall in their house, hinting at a struggle, and the statements given by them did not add up to the sequence of events.

A police official said that Seshadri allegedly mistreated his wife and son: He would not allow them to sleep in the bedroom and go for leisure meals all alone, neglecting the duo. This account was, however, not reinforced by his colleagues, the police said.

"Strained family relations seem to be the trigger for the murder and the accused have claimed Seshadri was trying to drive them out of the house on the plea of insanity. After a heated argument on Thursday, the mother-son duo hatched a plan to murder Seshadri and accordingly set an alarm for the next day at 4 am. The duo first banged his head against the wooden cot, then slit his left wrist to make it look like a suicide, and finally flung his body from the seventh floor window," said the official.

Seshadri's body, however, fell headlong, which is generally not the case in a suicide, raising suspicion.

The Amboli Police will now be recording the statements of others close to the Seshadri family, and ascertain the veracity of claims made by Jaisheela and Arvind, including that the SIDBI AGM was not inclined to fund his son's education and search for job prospects abroad. The police have seized the murder weapon and the blood stained clothes and sent these for forensic analysis.

The duo has been booked under relevant sections of the IPC for murder (section 302), causing disappearance of evidence (section 201) and common intention (section 34). They were produced before the local magistrate court on Saturday and remanded in police custody till Wednesday.