Bhopal: It was on 12 May when Noida resident Rekha Sharma was speaking to her 33-year-old daughter Twisha that she heard her son-in-law Samarth Singh shout, after which the call got disconnected. Fifteen minutes later, Sharma received a communication that said her daughter was “no more alive”.
Twisha Sharma, a Miss Pune beauty pageant winner and marketing professional, was reported dead on the night of 12 May, allegedly by suicide. At the time, she was living at her matrimonial home in Bhopal’s Katara Hills area. According to the First Information Report (FIR) accessed by ThePrint, a doctor from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhopal, alerted the police.
The police registered an FIR on 15 May, booking Twisha’s husband Samarth Singh, a criminal lawyer, and her mother-in-law, ex-judge Giribala Singh, under Sections 80 (2) (dowry death), 85 (cruelty against woman by her in-laws), 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.
Subsequently, the Madhya Pradesh Police arrested Giribala Singh, who was later granted bail by the District and Sessions court, Bhopal. Samarth Singh continues to be at large. Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Rajneesh Kashyap told ThePrint that a reward of Rs 10,000 has been announced for information on his whereabouts, and that the police had moved to suspend his passport.
Speaking to ThePrint from a corridor of the Bhopal court, Twisha’s grieving mother said she has no faith in the judiciary and police in Madhya Pradesh. “The Singh family is very powerful, first they killed my daughter and now one has already been granted bail and another has not even been arrested. I see no hope for justice here,” Rekha Sharma said.
Recalling conversations with Twisha, she told ThePrint that her daughter had been complaining about mental and physical abuse. “She had been informing us about the consistent mental and physical abuse that was perpetrated by her husband and mother-in-law,” Sharma said.
Sobbing, she added that Samarth had even questioned the paternity of their child when Twisha had disclosed that she was pregnant. “He told her that the child was not his and that he had a strong hunch that Twisha was not faithful.”
Following the turbulence, and Samarth’s lack of interest in going forward with the pregnancy, Twisha allegedly went through an abortion, a week before her death.
Hope for justice
On Monday, the Sharma family, accompanied by a few well-wishers, was present at the District and Sessions court in Bhopal to challenge the bail granted to Giribala Singh.
“First, the police were not registering an FIR, and then when they did, the court immediately granted Giribala Singh bail. These institutions are hand in glove with the murderers of my sister (Twisha), and that is why we are appealing for this case to be shifted to Noida or Delhi, where we can hope for some justice,” said Ashish Sharma, the deceased’s cousin.
He further alleged that the legal fraternity in Bhopal had refused to take up the case, and the family had to contact lawyers in Delhi for representation.
Ashish told The Print that Twisha was full of life and was a very strong woman. “She would stand up for the rights of strangers and always spoke her mind. She was fearlessly independent, but after her marriage she lost a part of herself because of the constant harassment she faced from her in-laws,” he said.
The cousin further alleged that weeks before Twisha’s death, she had returned to their residence in Noida. “She was tired of all the harassment and came back home. She had lost 15 kg and was barely recognisable,” he said.
The two families met, however, and decided to give the marriage another chance. “A little while after she came back to Bhopal, she started telling me that Samarth was blaming her and calling her names. He told Twisha that her father has to rub his nose on the ground for getting a ‘characterless’ girl like her married to him,” Rekha said.
When the mother asked if she should visit Bhopal and smoothen things out, Twisha suggested that she saw little to no hope. “Woh mujhse theek se baat kare, tab na reh sakti hoon uske saath (only if he speaks properly to me can I stay with him),” she told her mother.
Tired of being called names. Twisha allegedly told her mother to book a ticket for her to come to Noida. In a chat accessed by ThePrint, Twisha confessed that “if I stay any longer I will go mad”.
The Sharmas on Monday challenged the bail to Giribala Singh, appealing to the court for transfer of the case to Uttar Pradesh or Delhi.
Meanwhile, ex-judge Giribala Singh told the media that Twisha’s parents were earning through her “looks” when she was alive and are trying to “gain mileage and earn some more after she had died”.
“What happened is really sad but she never gave us a fleeting moment to enjoy the news of her first baby. She began the abortion process and went ahead with it. We supported her but when she was going through hormonal issues, we asked her mother to come and stay with her but they did not,” she said.
“For five months, her parents never visited… We deliberately did not call her father; he has a very strange personality. For nearly 20 years, he has been working in the pharmaceutical industry—specifically in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, he could potentially be the source of many things.”
“I do not want to malign anyone but women can go and hang themselves… irresponsible conduct, but men can’t so they become criminals,” Giribala Singh said.
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(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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