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No clues to tabla player's murder

Sukhjit Purewal in San Jose

Anyone who knew Suresh Mangoli - the talented tabla player whose body was found in a irrigation canal two months ago - will tell you what an amiable fellow he was.

Which is what makes the possibility that the talented Bay Area musician knew his killer all the more baffling.

Mangoli's body was discovered in the Central Valley town of Tracy, just outside Stockton, on June 25. He had been shot once in the back of the head. His body had been burned and then wrapped in a sleeping bag. In fact, Mangoli's remains were so badly disfigured that a positive identification wasn't made until July 2, using his fingerprints.

Mangoli, 32, had lived in Stockton before moving to the Bay Area city of Fremont, where he got a job with a pharmaceutical company two months before he was murdered. He still returned to the Stockton area every weekend to give tabla lessons to children at the Stockton Hindu temple, according to friend Meenakshi Mehndi.

But during the last weekend of June, Mangoli, 32, never returned to Fremont. He was last seen leaving the city of Modesto on the morning of June 24. When he hadn't returned to his job by midweek and wasn't answering his cell phone, friends contacted the police. His car, a new Honda Civic, was also missing.

San Joaquin County Sheriff's Detective Bruce Wuest said that initial investigations suggested it was very possible that Mangoli knew his killer

Mangoli's car was found in Tijuana, Mexico in the possession of heroin addict from Delaware, Wuest told rediff.com. The addict however, is not considered a suspect.

Wuest said it seemed unlikely that Mangoli was the victim of a carjacking since the car still had its original licence plate when it was found. Mangoli was killed somewhere else and then dumped at that spot, said the detective.

It was unlikely carjackers would go to such lengths and it was even possible that the car was just left somewhere by the killer, said Wuest. "The theory is that wherever this occurred, the person didn't want to or couldn't leave Suresh there," he added.

Mangoli, who was from Chandigarh, had been in the US for about seven years. He didn't have any family here but quickly made friends. He had just become a US resident thanks to the Stockton temple which had sponsored him, said Mehndi. In return, Mangoli continued giving lessons at the temple.

He had returned to India about a year ago to marry Sunita, and friends said he missed her dearly. Mangoli had played with many of the Bay Area's popular musicians including singer Sanjay Sen, Mehndi's husband Harjeet Mehndi and Piyush Nagar.

"His loss is already being felt," said Meenakshi Mendhi sadly. "There is no one with his talent."

The local circle of musicians have rallied on behalf of their friend and started a trust fund to benefit Mangoli's family. "He comes from a poor family," Mehndi said. "They counted on him."

On Friday night, the friends are performing a concert at the Sunnyvale Temple to add to the fund which Mangoli's family will be able to use for several years to come, said Mehndi.

The fund has raised about $30,000, part of which helped pay for Mangoli's father to fly in from India for the funeral services. They gave him $14,000 when he left, Mehndi said. The Sunnyvale temple paid for the funeral.

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