An Unnecessary Death

I am amazed at the absence of resistance to persuasion in the following true story recreated from newspaper reports.

The dead body of 22-year-old Priyanka Ramanuj, a first year MBA student, was picked up from a sewage canal between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar on October 24, 2010. The young woman had been missing since October 21. That evening she had called her brother to say that she was still in the library and would be late to get home. Soon after, her cellphone was switched off. There were no further calls from her.

The post-mortem examination confirmed that the death was caused by drowning because water had entered the lungs. There were no signs of rape or injuries pointing to an assault. The police started investigating the case assuming that it was a suicide or an accidental death although they did not rule out murder.

Priyanka had been engaged to Mahendra Sadhu, an engineering student and the son of a local builder and political leader. Both the families had been waiting for them to complete their studies, marry, and settle down. Both the families asserted that Priyanka was not the kind that would commit suicide and that it was a clear case of murder by someone who knew her. A shallow sewage canal was hardly the place where a healthy young woman would get drowned. But no one could point a finger at anyone who would want to kill her. Mahendra’s father Chandu Sadhu suspected that one of his many political enemies was the killer.

In five days the police cracked the case building on certain Facebook messages. The woman had been murdered by her fiancé, Mahendra, with the help of his friend, Hardik Gohil. They admitted to the police that on the evening of October 21, they met Priyanka and persuaded her to lie to her brother that she was still in the library nearly an hour after she had left the college premises. They told her that they wanted to give her a surprise. All three got into Mahendra’s car and went for a long drive. 

During the drive they gave her a soft drink mixed with a sedative. Once she was unconscious, Mahendra made several calls to Priyanka’s cellphone and then switched it off. Then they drove to Drive-In Cinema, parked the car there, and used a cushion to smother her. They drove out, and assuming that she was dead, dumped the body in a sewage canal. They called Priyanka’s brother and told him that Priyanka was not picking up his repeated calls.

They thought that they had pulled off a smart murder. They had the perfect alibi. On the evening of October 21, they were watching a film at Drive-In Cinema and they tried repeatedly to call her until she switched off her cellphone.

More background information surfaced during the investigation.

Son of a rich builder-politician, Mahendra had a flat, a car, and a lot of cash to spend. He spent lavishly on his friends. Hardik Gohil, his closest and long-term friend, was a beneficiary of his largesse.

Priyanka had been engaged to a doctor; it was called off in 2008. Her father Chandrakant Ramanuj was working as chief engineer to Mahindra’s father Chandu Sadhu.

Mahendra had an affair with a classmate (Disha Dave), which ended in 2009 when she moved with her parents to Dubai. He was dejected. Chandu Sadhu suggested to Chandrakant Ramanuj that if Mahendra and Priyanka married, it would be good for both of them. Ramanuj agreed; Priyanka and Mahendra got engaged at a grand function. They used to meet occasionally. There did not appear to be any problem between them.

Mahendra, however, got in touch with Disha on Facebook and their relationship was rekindled. She came to Ahmedabad during Navratri in October 2010. Mahendra managed to spend eight out of the nine evenings with her. Priyanka didn’t know or suspect anything.

Mahendra wanted to marry Disha.  So he asked Hardik to persuade Priyanka to break off the engagement. To find out quietly how Priyanka would react, Hardik joked with her and asked what she would do if Mahindra broke off the engagement and married another girl. She said she didn’t have the heart to go through yet another engagement.

Both Mahendra and Hardik concluded that getting rid of Priyanka was the only way out of the sticky situation.

[True story reconstructed from news reports that appeared in the Ahmedabad edition of DNA and the Times of India between October 25 and 31, 2010.]