She was killed by her friends ! Why ? | Desi Crime & True Crime India

The Content:

The Jhanvi Kukreja murder case, which sent shockwaves through Mumbai on New Year’s Eve 2021, reached a major legal milestone in January 2026. A Mumbai Sessions Court convicted Shree Jogdhankar, sentencing him to life imprisonment for the brutal assault of the 19-year-old at Bhagwati Heights in Khar. While co-accused Diya Padalkar was acquitted due to a lack of "cogent evidence," the case remains in the headlines as Jhanvi’s mother, Nidhi Kukreja, recently moved the Bombay High Court to challenge the acquittal

Keywords: Jhanvi Kukreja murder case, Shree Jogdhankar conviction, Diya Padalkar acquittal, Khar New Year party case, Mumbai crime news.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

There's a strange energy that fills Mumbai every New Year's Eve. You can almost feel the city holding its breath, waiting for midnight to wash away the mistakes of the year that's gone by. It's the night when even the sea seems a little louder, a little excited. When every balcony seems like it's pretending to be a club. A party is on and everyone seems to be celebrating. On December 31st, 2020, that energy felt different. The city was only just waking up from months of lockdown. Masks still hung from wrists. Sanitizer bottles stood next to wine glasses, but people were just desperate. Desperate to feel normal again. Among them was one 19-year-old girl, her name Janvi Kukrita. A bright, confident girl, student from Car, Mumbai. She had just finished a long, dull pandemic year. Bored of online classes and craving friends, noise, fun, music. Anything that reminded her really of just being alive. If you asked her parents, they would tell you. Dramatic sometimes, emotional almost always, but fiercely loyal. The kind of friend who would fight for you, but also find who felt things too deeply. Again. Welcome to Welton Marigold. I'm your storyteller Ambakar, and tonight's story is about of 19-year-old Janvi Kukreja. The night of December 31st, 2020, that night her plan was simple. Ring in 2021 at Hagwanti Heights. Her friend Yash Ahuja's duplex apartment. Yash's parents were out of town, and like hundreds of others across Mumbai, he had decided to throw a small party. A small bash strictly limited to guests who were old school and college friends. Music, dancing, and enough alcohol to forget that the world was still in a pandemic. About a dozen people who came. Among them were two names that hours later would be printed on every newspaper. Front page in India. Pretty, restless, with a tongue that ran ahead of her thoughts. She was tall, athletic, good at jokes, bad at growing up. The three, Janvi, Diya and Sri, had been close friends since teenage years. They'd gone to the same tuitions, attended the same birthdays, and like many teenage groups in Mumbai, had mixed all the complications of friendship crushes and heartbreak into one entangled relationship. There had been talk, gossip actually, that Sri and Diya would see each other now. That wouldn't have mattered except for the one detail that Janvi had previously dated Sri. Briefly, months ago. The sort of adolescent relationship that ends with polite texts and lingering jealousy. By 10 that night, the duplex at Bhagvanti Heights was alive. Upstairs, fairy lights glowed over the terrace. Downstairs, couches disappeared under snack packets and half-filled glasses. Someone put on a playlist. Someone opened a cheap champagne bottle too early. Snapchat stories were already rolling. Boomerangs of glitter, laughter, masks hanging from chins, Instagram stories. At midnight, they all screamed together. The countdown, the hugs. There are short clips from that moment still floating around somewhere online. John V smiling into the camera, Dia dancing next to her, Shri half visible behind them. 20 seconds of joy frozen. When you watch it now, there's nothing sinister in it. Just kids being kids celebrating survival of the pandemic. But if you look closely, you can see what police later described. Dia leaning too close to Sri, Jandi looking across briefly, smile and then her smile fading away. The smallest tightening of the jaw. A moment no one would really notice otherwise. After 1 a.m., the guests began leaving. A few who lived nearby decided to crash for the night. By half past one, the party had fallen quiet. The terrace lights blinked lazily. Music played low through a Bluetooth speaker. What was left was only Yash, Shri, Diya, Janvi, and maybe one or two floating between levels. And that is the time window that really matters. The half hour before everything changed. Now according to Yash's later statement, he saw John Vi walk into the upper bedroom and find Shri and Diya in an intimate position. He remembered her voice hardening, a few harsh words, and then a door slamming. Thinking they just needed space, Yash went downstairs. Minutes later, he heard shouting again, heavier this time, but it stopped abruptly. He assumed the argument was just over. It wasn't. Because between 1.30 a.m. and 2.30 a.m., something violent unfolded on the 15th floor duplex of Pagwanti Heights. Neighbors later told police they heard thuds in the staircase shafts, like someone running, something being dragged. Around 2.45 a.m., a resident of the second floor stepped out after hearing those noises. What he saw ended every speculation. On the landing between the second and third floors lay a young woman. Her hair matted in blood, body twisted. One shoe off, neck bruised, and skull fractured. She was still wearing a black party dress. At first glance, he thought it was an accident, maybe a fall, but the blood trail told a very different story. It came from above. Drops smeared the railing, streaks ran down 13 floors. He alerted security, they called the police. The clock read 2:47 a.m. at that point. By the time the officers from Car Police Station reached the building, the lane outside Bhagavanti Heights had filled with confusion. The party that was meant to celebrate new beginnings had become a crime scene wrapped in yellow tape. The first response officers found where the trail began, near the apartment on the top floor. Inside were Dia and Sri, dazed, smelling of alcohol. Sri had a swollen lip, blood on his t-shirt, scratches on his chest and face. Dia's hands, they bore small cuts. Her voice cracked as she claimed she had passed out that she had woken up to the shouting. No forced entry, no signs of intruders. Every person who had been at that party was an invited friend, which meant to the police killer was already inside. At 3 a.m., paramedics examined the body. It was Janvi Kukraja. They confirmed no pulse. The brutal injury on the back of her skull indicated direct impact of a hard surface and finger marks along her neck suggested strangulation. Later reports would list 48 separate injuries. That number alone told the investigators they were dealing with something personal, frenzied, rather than planned. By dawn, Phagwanti Heights looked as if time had just stopped. Reporters had begun clustering near the gates. The officers photographed overturned glasses, a shattered phone, and on one wall, the blurred imprint of bloody palm. In the bathroom, they found a bucket filled with soapy water, and inside it a blood-stained bed sheet and pillowcases half washed. There were detergent packets lying open on the floor. Next to the bucket was Dia's top, damp, faint reddish patch near the head. The discovery changed the case from tragedy to crime. Under Indian law, that one bucket invoked section 201 of the IPC. Destruction of evidence. Someone had tried to clean up before raising an alarm. Then at 6 a.m. after brief questioning, both Dea Padalkar and Sri Jogdankar were formally arrested under sections 302 and 34. With common intention. The recorded injuries matched a struggle. Sri's lip split, scratches on his chest, and most telling, a severe human bite mark on his right finger. Forensic examination later matched the bite perfectly to Janvi's dental pattern. The prosecution could call it the smoking gun in flesh. It was proof she had fought, fought hard till the very end. Around 7 a.m., Jan Vi's father reached the building. He was met not with words but with flashes of cameras, policemen, and the sight of his daughter's body wrapped in white. On the first morning of 2021, a father's world ended while the rest of Mumbai was waking up to wish each other a happy new year. By 8, Cooper Hospital had taken custody of the body. The autopsy report had arrived by noon, would confirm every nightmare. 48 injuries, extensive cranial fracture, brain hemorrhage, strangulation marks and abrasions on knees and elbows showing dragging the medical line that summed it up. Death due to blunt force and manual strangulation. By afternoon, photographs of Bhagwanti Heights plastered every news portal. The case was already being named the Car Party Girl killed on New Year's Eve by the same people she had raised a toast with. At Carr Police Station, investigators began drawing the first timeline. And it went. Party begins 10 p.m. Majority leave after 1 a.m. Argument between Jan V. Diyashri around 1 30 a.m. Death estimated between 2 and 2 30 a.m. There was no unidentified suspect, no missing pieces, just a single question that nobody could answer. Why? Why all of this? How does the celebration turn into such a catastrophe within half an hour? How does friendship become something so violent that it leaves forty-eight wounds? Those questions would be the ones that define the investigation that followed. The forensic team began digging deeper, lifting samples. They tagged everything by sterile code. Luminol sprayed across walls revealed faint splatters invisible in daylight. Even after detergent, blood still told its story. The bucket of soapy water found in the washroom became exhibit A, proof that someone inside had tried to erase that night. Meanwhile, senior inspector Gajanan Kadam divided the case into three questions. Who? What exactly happened? And why? The first was easy. There were only friends in the room. The second and third would take months and months to decode. By 10 a.m. both Sri Joghdankar and Diya Padalkar sat in the car police interrogation room. Each smelled of alcohol, each gave a different version. Sri said he had gone downstairs for air. Diya claimed she fainted after drinking. Neither could explain the blood on clothes or the bite on his finger that had drawn so much attention. When the fingerprint officer entered, he noticed small crescent scratches on Shri's chest and jaw. Very much defensive marks. Under UV light, one wound on his right index finger glowed faint blue. The doctor leaned in and whispered, a human bite. The lab tests that followed matched the bite impression exactly to Jan V's dental cast. It was physical proof of a fight. Jan V's last cream frozen in teeth marks on the man accused of killing her. The forensic trail upstairs filled the gaps in chronology. On the bed, droplets of blood that had seeped into the cotton weave. Along the door frame, hair strands belonging to Janvi. On the railing of the 15th floor, staircase, a smear pattern beginning white and fading thinner with each floor. It suggested she had been dragged, losing strength with every landing until the thuds stopped on the second floor. There was no point pretending it was a fall. You don't fall for 13 floors, leaving a trail that looks like you've been pulled. One senior detective whispered to another, There's no mystery really. It's just rage. Pure rage. The charge sheets submitted within weeks read like anatomy of that rage. Janvi discovers Sri and Dia in an intimate moment. Shouting escalates. Dia slaps. Sri restrains. Janvi bites him. He hits back. The trio struggle. She runs toward the stairs. Violence follows down each landing until she collapses. Afterwards they panic and try to clean. The legal language ends in one cold line. Death occurred due to common intention to cause grievous injury. The prosecution built its core around India's last scene together doctrine. The rule that if two people are the last seen with the victim and the victim is found dead under suspicious circumstances, the burden shifts to them. Both Dea and Shri admitted they were alone with Janvi last night. Neither could explain what happened next. The defense, even that early, began practicing its moves. They argued there was no direct eyewitness, that the investigators were reading emotion as evidence. They hinted that Shri had left the building around 3 a.m. A detail backed by one functioning ground floor CCTV camera. The footage showed him walking out, disoriented, shirt bloodstained, then returning minutes later with security guards. Look, they said, he too was injured. Maybe someone else attacked them all. But here's the thing when the prosecutors matched the timestamp 3.02am against the autopsy window of death between 2 and 2 30 a.m. The argument cracked. By the time that the camera caught movement, Chan Vei was already dead. Police also produced laundry evidence. The half-washed bed sheet, the detergent residue, the bucket of soapy water all pointed to an immediate cleanup. Detergent samples matched the chemical composition of a packet open in duplex bathroom. The fibers contained microscopic bubbles trapped in half-tried soap form. One more reason. The forensic report used the word tampering. And then there were the call data records. Chanvi's phone stopped transmitting at 1.32 a.m. Shri's last outgoing call, two seconds long, was placed at 2.01 a.m. After that, silence. No activity until police seized the devices. It was an electronic black hole covering exactly the half hour that took a life. Then there was the mental health angle, which surfaced midway through January. Shri's lawyer filed for a revaluation, claiming concussive blackout and emotional instability. The court-appointed psychologist described him as volatile, remorseful, showing inconsistencies in his behavior. The prosecution just scoffed it off. Confusion doesn't wash sheets, the inspector said when reporters asked. Yash Ahuja, you know the host, the one who had hosted the party, and key witnesses gave their statement repeatedly. Each time the same, Janvi saw something she shouldn't have. She shouted, Tempers rose. He left the room believing it would end with apologies, not blood. This statement never changed, and it actually remains as one of the few consistent things in this case. The public reaction did what Mumbai always does. It turned crime into a conversation. Cafes buzzed with theories. WhatsApp groups carried leaked lips, strangers to Joe's sides. Some called it drunken accident. Others said privilege was trying to buy its way out. The phrase, you know, 48's injuries became part of daily vocabulary almost. Then by February 2021, police had everything they needed biological evidence, witness accounts, motive tangled in jealousy, and no other suspect. They briefed the media with caution, but conviction. This isn't Bollywood, one officer even said. It's three kids and only one came out alive. But for John V's parents, this wasn't science. It was survival. They attended every conference, refusing to let grief be filtered through speculation. On the nights when cameras camped outside the building, they stood quietly by the window. Nothing anyone wrote could match the silence of a family dinner table missing one person. When the charge sheet hit court, its weight alone spoke volumes. Twelve hundred pages of evidence compressed into envelopes sealed with red tape. Inside were photographs of blood on stair rails, magnified bites, the washed linen that portrayed panic. The document ended with the line Accused Diya Padalkar and Sri Shaipal Jogdhankar, acting in concert, committed the of Janvi Kukreja. Trials in India can be long. They can take a lot of time. And time is not measured in days or months. Sometimes in years, seasons. Hearings begin, pause, and resume. The first session would not start till the late end of 2021. By which time the city had already moved on and built its verdict. For the youth of Mumbai, the case became cautionary folklore. Proof that parties can in fact curdle and that friendship can fracture past repair. Still, despite lab reports, witness statements, and hours of interrogation tapes, one question persisted even among the police. Did Sri and Dia intend to kill or did they simply not stop soon enough? Did it all just get out of hands? That thin twilight between accident and intention would become the battlefield of the courtroom. Outside media caravans had already turned the story into a spectacle. They drew out photographs from social media, John Lee grinning at a beach, Diya posing with coffee cups, Shri mid-selfie and ran them under headlines about jealousy and rage. To strangers, they were no longer teenagers, but characters in a citywide morality play. Inside the jail that January, Sri and Diya saw none of it. He spent his days sketching. She joined distance learning courses. Letters from family arrived every week, each one ending with the same plea. Tell us the truth so we can sleep. None received an answer. By the end of that first month, the police were sure of three things. One, the murder scene covered 13 floors. Two, the evidence of confrontation was physical and undeniable. Three, only three people had been present at the decisive moment. The rest, alcohol levels, jealousy, fear, are just interpretations, is what trials are built on. And when the sessions court at Dindoshi finally accepted the charge sheet later that year, it opened a door not just for justice but for the endless retelling. Every case has a pulse. Sometimes it beats in paperwork, sometimes it hides in a father's memory. In the Jandi Kukreja case, it throbbed through every stair of Bhagavanti Heights. A vertical kind of like a scar carved into concrete. As 2021 folded into 2022, those stairs were starting to gather dust. The building went back to the quiet normalcy. But no one ever used that particular landing without quickening their pace. The echo of that night obviously clung to it. The sound of young feet, the rush, and the terrible weight of hindsight. When the sessions court accepted the charge sheet at the end of 2021, it did not just open a case, it reopened that stairwell for the whole city. Because two teenagers stood behind the glass, their heads down. When it was read out, was sections 302, 34, and 201. Common intention, destruction of evidence. Both answered the same way. They both pled not guilty. And just like that, a private nightmare turned into a public theater. Every hearing felt like an echo chamber. Shoving microphones through iron bars, photographers chasing expressions. Inside the courtroom ticked in slow bureaucratic rhythm. Outside table anchors boiled the story into hashtags. Hashtag justice for Chandi. Hashtag cardboard. Hashtag party gone wrong. The prosecution went first. Assistant public prosecutor Rukmini Badami held up the physical evidence like a script already written by blood. The clean bed sheet, the pillowcases, the photographs of stair bruises. 48 wounds, she said softly. Letting the number hang. Letting everyone feel how much it is. Not one, not two. Forty-eight, each a plea for help. She walked the court through a minute by minute reconstruction. Starting from 1.30 a.m. Argument in the bedroom. 1.45 a.m. Escalation screaming. 2 a.m. Dragging into staircase. 2.30 a.m. Death. Then she turned to the accused. Two living witnesses to that timeline. No one else. She called the forensic experts one by one. The doctor described the bite mark on Shri, Joghthankar's finger, direction arc, and tooth spacing perfectly consistent with the victim. Traces of John Mee's DNA were found on both accused. Detergent rescue in fabric samples. Blood micro splatter on Shri's jeans. Matching droplets on ninth floor railing. There were slides, charts, short silences, and photographs appeared on screen. Each silence was louder than words. The defense attacked in splastic fashion. Procedural holes, missing footage, gaps in timelines. They played the ground floor CCTV clip showing Shri leaving the building injured at 3 a.m., suggesting he too was a victim of the chaos. There had to be someone else who had been a part of this drunken quarrel. But the prosecution countered with medical facts. If Janvi died between 2 and 2.30, the video only proved that after she died, after she was killed, Sri left. He walked. Not before. Then came the attempt to shift the emotions. The mental health argument we just spoke about a few minutes ago. Psychiatrist spoke of Shri's unstable state, his his perceptual og. The lawyer's voice softened when he said, Your Honor, these are children. They did not plan a f they drowned in confusion. Early 2022 brought a twist. The Bombay High Court granted both conditional bail. The order said that prosecution material had been collected and continuing detention served no judicial purpose. For Janvi's parents, it felt like a second death. We buried her once, her mother said quietly to a journalist, but we lost her again today. By 2023, the hearings turned clinical. The vocabulary changed from emotion to geometry, drop angle trajectories, lots of patterns, velocity of impact, words that sounded more like physics lectures than a courtroom. Judges listened, lawyers cited precedent and the photograph of a girl once alive stared from the evidence board, reduced to pixels under courtroom lights. Mumbai meanwhile attempted to move on. Parties returned, yet every 31st December, somehow someone inevitably mentioned her name. The reminder no city this loud could silence. But then in January of 2026, the Mumbai Sessions Court delivered its final verdict. Sri Jog Thankar, convicted. The court found him guilty of and sentenced him to life in prison. The judge noted that the prosecution successfully proved a complete chain of circumstantial evidence, specifically citing his conduct after the incident as a key factor in proving his culpability. Diya Padalkar, however, acquitted Jandy's childhood friend was acquitted of all charges. The court gave her the benefit of the doubt, stating there was a lack of cogent evidence to prove she participated in the assault or shared a common intention to kill Jandi. For Mumbai's youth, this case became and stays as a warning spoken under music. Don't underestimate emotion. Don't mistake control for safety. Every December, the skyline erupts with colour again, with just the joy of moving into the next year. Fireworks bloom over Carter Road, and somewhere nearby behind drawn curtains, two parents count seconds, not toward midnight, but toward another year survived without her. 48 wounds, two accused, one staircase, one convicted, one acquitted. This marks the end of this episode. Until the next episode, stay kind, stay safe.