In a dramatic turnaround of events, ex Navy Officer Emile Jerome, who is now serving 10 years’ imprisonment for murdering TV professional Neeraj Grover in 2008, has turned against his girlfriend and partner in crime Maria Susairaj.

According to a report published on Sunday in a leading daily, Jerome, who has been found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, is now challenging the trial court’s verdict stating that it is Maria who is supposed to be serving the punishment and not him, for she is accused No 1.

In an appeal filed in the Bombay High Court he stated, “That motive, if any, was with the Original Accused No 1 for committing the offence and not with the Appellant/Original Accused No 2.”

"We have filed an appeal in the High Court against the sessions court order. The appeal would come up for hearing on July 25 along with Jerome`s bail application," his lawyer Wahab Khan said.

Maria, a Kannada actress who served three years’ imprisonment for hiding evidences of the murder and helping her then beau Jerome in disposing Neeraj’s body, was set free last month.

The appeal further states that the prosecution had not been able to ascertain the time of Grover`s death, and hence, the possibility that the victim was already dead, when Jerome landed in Mumbai, cannot be ruled out.

It further alleges that the investigating agency (Crime Branch) had planted evidence like the knife and plastic can, in which, kerosene was taken to burn the body.

Neeraj’s murder shocked the entire nation as he died the most disgraceful death. His body was chopped into 300 pieces by the two accused and disposed off in the jungles of Thane district, near Mumbai.