Mentally Disturbed Mumbai Man On Stabbing Spree Kills 4 Neighbours, Arrested

A mentally disturbed man stabbed four neighbours to death and injured another at a residential building near Grant Road station in South Mumbai.

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A mentally disturbed man stabbed four neighbours to death and injured another at a residential building near Grant Road station in South Mumbai on Friday afternoon. After the incident, the accused locked himself inside a room in the building. The incident took place around 3.30 pm at Parvati Mansion on Grant Road, an official said, as reported by the news agency PTI.

The accused has been identified as Chetan Gala. D B Marg police have arrested him and he has been booked for murder among other charges under the Indian Penal Code. The wife and children of the accused had left him two months ago, and he suspected that his neighbours had instigated them, the official further informed, PTI reported.

"During preliminary interrogation, the accused said that his wife, son Dipen (24) and two teenage daughters were not staying with him for the last two months and he suspected that his neighbours had instigated his wife," said zonal DCP Abhinav Deshmukh, as quoted by Times Of India.

"Gala is mentally disturbed but he is not undergoing any treatment. We are questioning him." The injured were rushed to a private hospital in Girgaum and civic-run Nair hospital where a couple, Jayendra and Neela Mistry, and two more women died during treatment, the official said, PTI reported. 

"Gala, who had recently undergone an angioplasty, lives on the second floor of Parvati Mansion. The Mistrys are his immediate neighbours, while the Brahmabhatts live on the first floor," said Deshmukh, as quoted by TOI.

The deceased were identified as Jayendra Mistry (77), his wife Ilabai (70), and Jenil Brahmabhatt (18), who was studying science at a Churchgate college, according to a Times Of India report. According to the report, Chetan Gala told police that in the afternoon, he called up his son and asked him to tell his mother to return home.

He allegedly admitted to the crime while telling the officials that he was disturbed after his family members abandoned him. Though visibly mentally disturbed, he was not undergoing any medical treatment, the official said, as reported by PTI. A First Information Report (FIR) under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at D B Marg police station and probe is underway, the official added.

According to the residents, Gala first stabbed the Mistrys, his neighbours next door, several times with a big knife and then attacked his former domestic help Prakash Waghmare (53), who was lying down in the corridor, Times Of India reported.  "As Waghmare had kept a pillow on his chest, he did not suffer a deep injury," a resident told TOI. "On hearing cries for help, Snehal Brahmabhatt (44) and her daughter Jenil (18) rushed up to the second floor. Gala stabbed them on the chest, stomach and neck."