IANS/Mumbai

Kannada actress Maria Susairaj yesterday claimed she was innocent in the May 2008 killing of television executive Neeraj Grover. “All I can say is I am innocent,” Susairaj said, facing a hostile and aggressive media after her release in the morning from the Byculla Jail.
“I have left my past behind. I have not yet decided on (the) future. I will let my family decide,” she said.
Susairaj said she painted and prayed while in prison.
“I have not yet digested the fact that I have been convicted, and I have not seen so many people in the past three years,” she said.
However, both Susairaj and her lawyer Sherif Sheikh refused to comment on the case or the judgment or the victim Grover, saying the matter was still sub-judice.
Susairaj came to the Mumbai Press Club accompanied by her lawyer and her brother even as scores of friends of the victim led by filmmaker Ashok Pandit created a drama at the media conference.
Carrying placards, they shouted slogans demanding justice for Grover and booed both Sheikh and Susairaj.
Sheikh said that Susairaj had no plans to join Bollywood or act in any film, contrary to what has been claimed by some filmmakers.
Sheikh took pains to dismiss the claim that Grover’s body was chopped into 300 pieces. He flashed a photograph submitted by the prosecution to back what he was saying.
“You tell me, can you see where are the 300 pieces? The prosecution did not mention 300 pieces. The photograph shows the body was almost intact, let alone 30 pieces.”
Meanwhile, Neelam Grover, the mother of the victim, said she feared a threat to her life from Susairaj.
“I fear threat to my life... She can cause damage to us anytime after she has been released from the jail,” Neelam said in Kanpur.
“She should not be allowed to move out of Mumbai in any condition... She is a liar, she can harm us and even hatch a conspiracy against us.”
Grover’s parents also objected to the “police security” provided to Susairaj when she emerged out of the jail.
“It’s surprising... A criminal is enjoying police protection. Now who is going to protect the common man,” asked his father Amarnath Grover.
“Though I am ready to hear her (Susairaj) if she wishes to make any point, but under any circumstances I would not approach her first,” he added.
Mariah was sentenced to three years imprisonment Friday by a Mumbai court for destroying evidence in the Neeraj Grover murder case. Since she had already served more than three years as an undertrial, she was ordered to be released once she paid the compensation amount of Rs.50,000 to the victim’s family.
Susairaj was sentenced to three years in jail by a Mumbai court on Friday for destroying evidence in the Grover murder case.
According to her lawyer, she was set free as she had already completed the sentence as an undertrial.
Her co-accused and fiancé, ex-naval officer Emile Jerome Mathew was sentenced to 10 years in jail after the court found him ‘guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder’.
The verdict came as a major setback to the police and prosecution which had claimed to have a strong case against both the accused. They now plan to challenge the judgment in the Bombay High Court.
In one of the most gruesome crimes of passion, Mathew stabbed to death Grover after he found him naked in Susairaj’s bedroom on May 7, 2008, at her apartment in Dheeraj Solitaire, in Malad in northwest Mumbai.