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Journalism of Courage
Aditi Sharma and Udit Bharati were in their teens when they met and fell in love. Their courtship continued through their student years in Mahantsingh Engineering College and when their parents learnt about the relationship they readily agreed to the marriage.
Life couldn8217;t have got any better. They postponed their plans for marriage as both wanted to acquire an MBA degree and secured admission at the Indian Institute of Modern Management at Wakad in Pune, unaware that their lives were about to change drastically.
According to A.K. Bharati, Udit8217;s father, encouraged by Aditi, Pravin confronted Udit warning him to not interfere in his Pravin8217;s and Aditi8217;s relationship. 8220;In a call that he made to his mother in the October of 2006, Udit told his mother that the relationship between him and Aditi no longer existed. He also told her that Pravin had confronted him, asking him to stay away from them,8221; said Bharati.
While Udit, a top ranker in his class continued with his management studies, Aditi and Pravin moved to Gurgaon in search of work. Six months passed and Aditi came back into Udit8217;s life again. She made a call to his cell phone, asking him to meet her at a restaurant in Chinchwad. When the estranged couple met on the evening of April 22, allegedly in the presence of Pravin, Aditi is said to have offered her former lover prasad from the Shirdi Sai Baba shrine.
After the meeting, Udit returned to his flat where he began vomiting. His friends rushed him to hospital, where he died a couple of days later. The post mortem revealed traces of arsenic in Udit8217;s body, which was attributed to the prasad. Udit8217;s parents began to see links between the break-up with Aditi and his death. Suspecting that Aditi and Pravin had planned his son8217;s murder, Bharati filed a case of murder against the two. Udit8217;s friends provided an important clue in the case when they informed the police that a day after Udit was hospitalised, a girl had called on his cell phone. His friend who had received the call suspected that the girl was Aditi.
While a strong motive for the murder still seems hazy with the couple refusing to divulge or confess anything, police inspector Bajirao Mohite of the Hinjewadi police station said the basic motive was the girl8217;s desire to not let anything mar her newfound relationship. 8220;We suspect Aditi did not want her past to haunt her and hence wanted to get Udit out of the way, lest he interferes in her life with Pravin. While its possible that after the break-up Udit may have made attempts to speak to her, it8217;s also a fact that he changed his cell phone number, probably in an attempt to forget her,8221; said Mohite.
The police arrested Aditi and Pravin on May 16, 2007. While they confirmed that Aditi had broken off with Udit after she met Pravin, they denied murdering him. While Pravin was let off on bail after a month, Aditi was refused bail being the prime accused in the case as she had allegedly killed Udit by giving him the prasad. The case came up for hearing at the district sessions court, Pune, roughly a year after the murder.
On June 11, Additional Sessions Judge S S Phansalkar-Joshi held Aditi and Pravin guilty of Udit8217;s murder. On June 12, the judge sentenced them to undergo rigorous life imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs 10,000 each.
8220;It was Pravin who must have devised the murder plot with Aditi merely executing it. Pravin had even issued threats to Udit when he began seeing Aditi. Aditi8217;s family and ours have known each other for six years and we had already accepted her as our daughter-in-law. In fact if she would have even told us about Udit after he was dead and expressed her apology, the case would probably not have come even this far, 8220; said Udit8217;s father A.K. Bharati, who works for Canara Bank in Jammu. He and his wife live in the posh Trikuta Nagar locality of Jammu.
Aditi8217;s parents are both doctors who live in Sainik Colony area of Jammu.
While the Bharatis were not at home, Udit8217;s aunt, Dr Rajni Bharati, a doctor at the Government Medical College Hospital, said, 8220;It was a very tragic end for my brother8217;s son. But we are happy with the verdict.8221;
With inputs from Jammu
