KANPUR: Vineet Manocha, a pharmaceutical trader, was stabbed to death in his Kanpur home five days ago. His son Subrat Manocha is now being questioned about who knew about the alleged murder plan. The main focus of the investigation is still on Subrat's wife, Shalu Manocha. Police say she helped plan the murder and hired Vishal Gautam and Raj Kishore as contract killers.




Shalu's family, on the other hand, has denied the claims. Reporters were told on Thursday by her older brother Dheeraj Arora and sister Sonia Mehrotra that they didn't think she could have planned the murder. As per Arora, Shalu was close to Vineet and often took care of his food and other daily needs. He also asked Subrat why he had been quiet and said that his family had not been able to get in touch with him since the death.




Right now, the police are trying to find out if Subrat knew about the supposed plan. Raghubir Lal, the commissioner of police, told PTI that Subrat had not been arrested or charged in the case. He said that his call logs and other intelligence inputs were being looked at. "If his involvement is established during the investigation, action will be taken against him," Lal stated.




One question that detectives are trying to figure out is how Shalu could have talked to Vishal about planning the murder without telling her husband. Police say Shalu set up Vishal and Raj Kishore to break into her flat and hide in her bedroom before she went to a party with Subrat. The couple is said to have arrived at the lounge around 10:30 pm and found Vineet's body when they got home around 3 am.




Now, police are looking at videos that are said to show Shalu dancing at the party to see if they were actually taken the nite of the murder. "We are also looking into how Shalu and Vishal talk to each other." Lal said, "We have recovered data from their seized phones and are now trying to get back deleted messages."




As police look into how they talked, they have found what they call a long conversation between Shalu and Vishal. A top police officer said Vishal had been sending Shalu "good morning" and "good nite" messages at first but hadn't gotten a response. Police say she started responding to him and slowly started talking to him about three months before the murder. The cop said that Shalu told Vishal he looked good and was smart. She also asked if he was dating someone and why he wasn't married yet. Police think that the talks were the start of the alleged plan to kill someone. Authorities think that Shalu purposely lied to Vishal to get him to kill the man.

The digital trail is now an important part of the investigation. Police said that 49 texts that Shalu and Vishal sent each other between May 1 and the day of the murder had been erased. During the same time period, they are said to have traded 309 calls. DCP West SM Qasim Abidi said that Vishal deleted his chat log with Shalu after the murder, but he couldn't get rid of all of the records of their WhatsApp calls.




Shivakant Dixit, Shalu's lawyer, disagrees with how the police described the event she went to the night of the murder. He explained that it wasn't a "high-society party" but a "regular kitty" with people from the drug business.




Vineet, who was 60 years old, was found dead in his Kanpur apartment on September 5. Police have been looking into Shalu's alleged part, as well as the roles of the two suspected contract killers.