Posing as uncle,Kanda went twice to her Dubai flat: Geetika’s brother

Ankit recalls how Geetika,seven months after she joined MDLR in 2006 as an air hostess,applied for a job in Kingfisher because MDLR airline operations had begun declining.

“He forced Geetika not to leave the company and immediately promoted her as Senior Cabin Crew. Geetika told him she didn’t want any preferential treatment,so Kanda revised the salaries of her team mates as well. That did surprise me a little then,” Ankit told The Indian Express.

He said the family began to have doubts about Kanda’s intentions and the role of Aruna Chadha,the other person named in Geetika’s suicide note,after Geetika went to Goa in early 2009 to work at Kanda’s casino there. Her passport,camera and laptop were stolen and she lodged an FIR against two of her colleagues.

“Kanda and Chadha put pressure on her to take the case back. There was an elaborate discussion at home. We did not want Geetika to get into trouble. We just asked her to leave the job,” Ankit said. Getting an NOC,he said,was a task since Kanda kept asking her not to quit.

After Geetika landed a job with Emirates,she moved to Dubai. She was “extremely happy” there and would often tell Ankit how well she was performing.

According to Ankit,the harassment started soon after. Kanda allegedly began making phone calls to Geetika’s bosses in Dubai. A forged letter with the Gurgaon SHO’s stamp followed.

Posing as her “tayaji (paternal uncle)”,Kanda,together with Chadha,dropped in twice at her flat in Dubai.

“She was scared because she was all alone in Dubai and would weep for hours on Skype. I repeatedly asked my parents to approach police. But because it involved a young girl,they tried to avoid it,” Ankit said.

Days later,Geetika was asked by her bosses to resign and return only after “sorting out the matter” in India. “She was very depressed. She had got something so important after working very hard and it was all slipping away.”

For three months,Geetika stayed at home. Then Kanda showed up with his wife and daughter,requesting the family to let her return to MDLR.

“We did have doubts… why was he taking so much interest in her. But the moment he said she is like my daughter,there was silence,” Ankit said. Kanda took Geetika’s family on a trip to Shirdi and Mumbai with his family. “Families were involved,we never imagined that he would… Now,I realise what he was after.”

He rejected police claims that his sister probably had to undergo termination of pregnancy. “Geetika noticed a lump in her underarm,Aruna was going to her doctor,so Geetika accompanied her. The reports about her abortion are meant to defame her. By assassinating her character,they think they will scare us into submission,” he said.

Ankit also dismissed the claim that Geetika was made to report to Kanda every evening after office work. He showed Newsline a copy of what he said was her contract with the MDLR. The 2009 contract states: “Geetika is supposed to report to the CMD on a daily basis.”

“Where did this theory of after-work hours and late evening hours come from? Would we not have objected had this been in her contract?” Ankit asked.

He said he too wants to know what exactly forced his sister to end her life. “It is also possible Geetika knew too much about Kanda’s other activities or had access to documents that he did not want to be out in public,” he said.

On August 5,the day Geetika hanged herself,Ankit was in Mumbai. He said she called him at 1.15 am and sounded disturbed. He said they would chat over Skype but because he was tired,they decided to talk the next day.

“I can never forgive myself. Had I spoken to her,may be she would not have taken this extreme step.”