Mid-Day
 
Mumbai, Mar 16: While model-turned-actress Sanjana Srivastava continues to fight for her life, her alleged boyfriend Deepak Malik told Mid Day on Wednesday that he did not have any relationship with her and had certainly not shot her. The police are still hunting for Malik, who has been absconding since the incident.

Sanjana was found in Lokhandwala on Saturday night with a bullet wound in her head.

In a telephonic interview, Deepak told MiD DAY that he had fled to Delhi, as he was scared, but was planning to  come before the cops soon.

“I didn’t shoot her. Why would I shoot her? Whatever I know about her I will tell the cops. I will come back with my lawyers and meet the police,” he said.

“I was just her physical instructor. Sanjana was seeing someone named Javed,” said Deepak, a national-level body builder.

Deepak said he met Sanjana through a common friend a year ago. “I was introduced to her as a model but later Sanjana told me that she was a high-class call girl. When she couldn’t make it as an actress, she decided to become a prostitute to make a living,” he said, adding that Sanjana’s former roommate Preeti had introduced her to prostitution.

Sanjana Shrivastava and Deepak Malik

According to Deepak, Preeti was a former bar dancer, who later acted in C-grade films like Zakhmi Billee.

Deepak then went on to rattle off a list of reasons why Sanjana was upset and depressed. “Sanjana had threatened to blow the lid off Preeti’s porn racket a few months ago and since then Preeti, who is related to a political bigwig in UP, had been threatening her.”

He added that Sanjana was also upset with her roommates. “Sanjana called a week ago and complained that her roommates Bhavna and Deepali abused her and forced her to leave as she was involved in flesh trade. This had depressed Sanjana and she wanted to commit suicide. She was also upset that she could not go to Dubai as planned, as she had signed an agreement with a flesh trader for providing her services.”

Finally, he added that she could have tried to kill herself, as she was in depression because of financial crisis. “She often asked me for money,” he said.

On Saturday

Deepak claimed that on Saturday, Sanjana had called him from a PCO for fat burner pills and supplements.

“In the evening, I was at my friend Nirmal’s apartment at Yari Road when Sanjana called me, saying she wanted to meet me. But I was busy and couldn’t go. Later, I received a call from the hospital that Sanjana had met with an accident,” he said.

However, instead of going to the hospital, Deepak went to Mount Mary church (which shuts at midnight) and then went for dinner to Bade Miya near Regal Cinema with his roommate Rachit.

“I was going to hospital but some of Sanjana’s friends called me to say that there were rumours that I had shot Sanjana. This scared me. So, I booked two tickets to Delhi — for my cousin Neeraj and me — in black, under a false name.”

He then told Neeraj to go to his home to get his clothes. That’s where the cops caught Neeraj. Deepak, who was waiting below the building, promptly escaped to Delhi. Deepak said that he didn’t approach the cops, as he felt they would have falsely implicated him in the case.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai police claim that Deepak could be cooking up stories and has allegedly absconded because he is guilty.

“If he is not guilty why is he not coming in front of us? We are also in search of his roommate Rachit, as Deepak was with him throughout the night when the incident occurred,” said a police officer.