For the first time since the DCB has been handed over investigations into the murder, the police indicated that Chandrakant Kahar, one of the three arrested, could be the prime accused. The other two arrested in the connection are Naresh Patel alias Naresh Naphtha and Kallu Dagga.

Kahar alias CK, who was arrested with Naphtha on January 12, was remanded to DCB custody twice and taken to Ahmedabad for lie detection and narco analysis tests. Earlier, talking to Express Newsline, the police chief had stated that there was possibility that CK was misleading the police by providing false information.

Interestingly, with the police hinting that it was CK himself who paid supari to contract killers to get rid of the councillor, all theories stating that it could be a political murder have been set aside.

In fact, the commissioner's statements clearly meant that it was not a political murder, but one committed by anti-social elements. While CK is a sand miner from the Tapi and has a say in practically all land deals on the other side of the river, Satbhaya had openly voiced her opposition to a number of land deals, land grabbing cases and those of encroachments in Rander.

Although Sharma did not reveal what emerged out of Kahar's interrogation, sources say he admitted to giving supari to get Satbhaya killed. While CK is also reported to have named the actual killers, the police have not officially shown their arrest as ``sufficient grounds to arrest them have not been established as yet,'' sources added.

It may not be surprising if the police name one of the actual killers to be Farooq Munshi, who was killed in an `encounter' last month. Almost all the 10 people associated with Munshi, who have been arrested so far, have confessed that Munshi accepted suparis from people to get jobs done.

Sharma, had earlier told Express Newsline that at least three more arrests would be made. Refuting allegations that the police were deliberately going slow on the case because of the alleged involvement of politicians, he had stated that the police were investigating the case as any other case and while much hue and cry was being made over this one murder case, not a word was being mentioned of the other 18 undetected murder cases in 1998.

Sharma categorically stated that with the investigations now ``attaining a definite direction'', it was a matter of few days before the killers were arrested.