Mumbai: Vijay Palande used his wife as 'honeytrap'

Mumbai: The probe into two separate instances of murder of citizens from Delhi has revealed that former gangster and prime accused Vijay Palande used his model wife Simran Sood as a 'honeytrap' to commit the crimes for usurping properties of the victims, police said.

"It has now emerged that Simran Sood is not Vijay Palande's friend but his wife. Both married in year 1998 or 1999. After the marriage, Palande was involved in a crime and was behind the bars for a few years. After he was freed, he started using his wife to trap victims for money and property," said a crime branch official.

Palande, formerly a gangster working for underworld don Santosh Shetty, along with his aides Dhananjay Shinde and Manoj Gajkosh, was apprehended by Crime Branch officials on April 11 in connection with the April 7 murder of Delhi-based businessman Arunkumar Tikku (67). Palande had befriended the victim's actor son Anuj Tikku with a motive to acquire his plush apartment in upscale Lokhandwala Complex, police had said.

After their arrest, the trio were taken into custody by Oshiwara police where the case was registered. Simran Sood, who hails from Punjab, was arrested by Amboli police on April 12 in connection with the abduction and murder of Delhi-based aspiring producer Karankumar Kakkad (28).

At the time of her arrest, Simran had claimed she was 28 years old though it was later turned out that she was 38, police said.

In both the cases, Simran introduced Palande as her "brother" to Anuj and Karankumar, police said.

Palande had allegedly hatched the conspiracy to kill Anuj's father Arunkumar and Kakkad.