Murder suspects arrested in Mumbai after ‘real-life Memento’ case

Indian police were able to arrest several suspects accused of murder after they found tattoos on the dead man’s body naming individuals he believed wanted to harm him, in an eerie parallel to the Christopher Nolan film Memento.

Guru Waghmare was killed inside a spa in the Worli area of India’s financial capital of Mumbai around 3am on Wednesday. According to Worli police, Waghmare was extremely well-known to the police as an informer, reported Indian news daily Hindustan Times.

However, he also had a series of criminal cases registered against him on allegations of extortion, rape, and molestation.

According to local media reports, Waghmare was a frequent patron of the Soft Touch Spa, and had taken a few staff members to a restaurant on his birthday. After dinner ended, everyone returned to the spa and allegedly planned to spend the night there.

Police said three male staff members stepped outside around 2.30am, and two unidentified men entered the spa and fatally stabbed Waghmare several times.

“The incident took place in the middle of the night but police were informed only at 2pm after which a team was sent to the spot and a case of murder was registered,” said a senior police officer, reported Indian news daily The Indian Express.

While conducting an autopsy, the police found the names of 22 individuals on his thigh, as people who were likely responsible if anything unfortunate were to happen to him – in a manner similar to Nolan’s 2000 psychological thriller. Memento follows Leonard Shelby (Pearce), a man with short-term memory loss who uses photographs, notes, and tattoos in an attempt to uncover his wife’s murderer.

Santosh Sherekar, the owner of the spa in which the murder took place, as well as another spa owner named Mohamed Firoz Ansari were arrested.

“The deceased, RTI activist Guru Waghmare, would threaten and extort money from spa owners in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane. Likewise, he harassed spa owners in neighbouring states as well due to which there are about eight FIRs and 22 non-cognisable offences registered against him,” a senior police officer told The Indian Express.

Mr Sherekar was allegedly being extorted by Waghmare, and Mr Ansari’s spa had been shut down after a raid in 2023. Mr Ansari had refused to pay Waghmare, who then made a complaint to the police leading to the raid, the police said.

The two men decided to work together and allegedly hired a contract killer named Sakib, from the Indian capital Delhi, and offered him Rs400,000 (£3,712) for the job, police said.

CCTV footage from the spa as well as the restaurant helped police put together the sequence of events. The police found two men, who tried to hide their identity by wearing a raincoat, following Waghmare from the restaurant to the bar, but then noticed that they also stopped to buy something from a small shop nearby.

An investigation revealed that the payment was made by UPI, and the account linked to the payment belonged to Mr Ansari. The police were able to track Mr Ansari down to his home, where he allegedly confessed to the crime and named his accomplices.

Mr Sakib, who had left the city by train the night of the murder, was found and arrested from a station in Kota, a city in the North Indian state of Rajasthan. Two more people with him, also suspects, have been arrested.