Ghaziabad murders-suicides: Relative held for abetment, two FIRs lodged

Brother-in-law, named in purported suicide note, arrested day after crime; he has denied all charges.

A day after Gulshan Vasudeva and his family were found dead in an Indirapuram high-rise campus, police on Wednesday arrested his brother-in-law on charges of abetment to suicide. Rakesh Verma was arrested following an FIR lodged by Vasudeva’s brother Devendra Vasudeva.

Businessman Gulshan Vasudeva's brother in law Rakesh Verma (in centre) seen in Ghaziabad Police custody on charges of allegedly abetting the former’s suicide. (Sakib Ali / HT Photo)

A suicide note found in the flat held Verma responsible too, said police.

Verma, however, denied that he owed Vasudeva any money.

According to police, Vasudeva had allegedly invested around Rs 1 crore in Verma’s business but the latter failed to return the money that led to pushing Vasudeva into a financial crisis.

On Tuesday early morning, Vasudeva (45) and his wife Parveen(43), who together ran a garments business, allegedly jumped from their eighth floor flat in Krishna Apra Sapphire apartments after killing their teenage children. Their employee Sanjana (26) also jumped with them. She died in hospital.

According to police theory, Vasudeva and his wife operated two businesses related to jeans and garments for children at Gandhi Nagar in Delhi and were facing financial crisis as a result of cheating allegedly committed by Verma in 2015.

“As a result of the financial issues, the family took the extreme step of taking their lives. Verma told us that he had not been in touch with Vasudeva for the last over one and half years, and not even on the day of the incident. He also told us that he returned about Rs 98 lakh, but Vasudeva was asking for a total amount of Rs 1.39 crore, which included 5% interest amount also,” SSP added.

Vasudeva’s friend Bakshi had got two FIRs lodged against Verma and his mother Phoola Verma in 2015 for criminal breach of trust and cheating at Sahibabad police station. Both had been jailed for 28 days.

Verma is a resident of Shalimar Graden Extn I in Ghaziabad.

Before ending their lives Vasudeva had also made a video call to his friend 70-year-old Rakesh Arora, a resident of Jhilmil in East Delhi, and showed him his two dead children as well as the suicide note scribbled on the wall.

“These are money for our last rites... We five have a last wish that our bodies should be cremated together. The person responsible for our death is this... Rakesh Verma,” the note scribble on the wall read.

Verma denied all charges. “I had no communication with him on any matter ever since. I am saddened by the incident, especially the death of the two children. I have paid back all his money and whatever is to be told will be told before the court,” he said.