Five days after Rohit Tiwari, son of late politician and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, N.D. Tiwari, was found dead in his Defence Colony house, his wife is now being interrogated as the prime suspect.
Reports suggest that the role of his wife Apoorva Shukla and two domestic helps is being looked into by investigating officers.
On April 16, Rohit was found dead at his house and the post-mortem report revealed that he had been strangulated and smothered. An autopsy report said that there were signs that he died of ‘asphyxiation due to ante-mortem strangulation and smothering’ prompting the police to start a murder investigation. A murder case was registered under Section 302 (punishment for murder) of the IPC at Defence Colony police station and was subsequently transferred to the Crime Branch.
“A forensic team re-visited the house and collected fingerprint samples from the room in which Rohit was found dead. We are investigating the case from multiple angles,” said an officer.
“Rohit had two mobile phones. They were either switched off or out of network coverage on April 15 midnight. At around 3 a.m. on April 16, two calls were made from his phone but it got disconnected due to a network issue. We are also examining call details of Ms. Shukla’s mobile phone,” said an officer. However, the post-mortem report stated that he was murdered between 1-1.30 a.m. on April 16.
Rohit’s mother Ujjwala Tiwari said she was shocked after getting to know that he was murdered and said that the couple had many issues.
She refuted rumours that Rohit and Apoorva met in the Supreme Court complex and said that they met in Lucknow through a matrimonial website. After parting ways for a year, they again decided to get married.
Apoorva was questioned for over eight hours at his residence itself.
“We have got sufficient and unambiguous evidence against the suspect. A formal announcement on the arrest will be made soon,” deputy commissioner of police (crime) Joy Tirkey, who is leading the investigating team, said.
Along with her and the domestic helps, Rohit’s half-brother Siddharth was also at home at the time of his death.
“We have reasons to believe that Shekhar was administered an overdose of sleeping pills so that he could not resist. He used to take sleeping pills every night. But somebody overdosed him,” the officer said.
Rohit had fought a legal battle with ND Tiwari to prove that he was the late politician’s biological son. In 2014, the paternity test was decided in his favour, after which the senior leader accepted him publicly.