Air India pilot suicide: Boyfriend gets bail

A Mumbai court granted bail to a man accused of abetting his girlfriend's suicide, citing insufficient evidence and no suicide note.

MUMBAI: A sessions court on Friday granted bail to a 27-year-old Delhi resident who was arrested by the Mumbai police last month for allegedly abetting the suicide of his 25-year-old girlfriend. The woman, an Air India pilot, was found dead at her Andheri flat on November 25, after which the Powai police arrested her boyfriend under section 108 (abetment of suicide) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Air India pilot suicide: Boyfriend gets bail

After the woman’s suicide last month, her family had alleged that her boyfriend used to harass and publicly humiliate her, which led her to take the extreme step. They also claimed he tried to control her food habits by not letting her eat meat.

According to the police, a day before the woman’s death, the couple had had an argument at her apartment, after which the boyfriend left for Delhi. The woman then allegedly called him to say that she was going to die by suicide. She did not leave behind any suicide note.

Advocate Aniket Nikam, representing the accused, argued that there were no grounds to implicate his client in a suicide abetment case. He pointed to the FIR, which stated that the woman had spoken to her mother before the suicide and sounded normal. That the couple had some arguments was insufficient to prove that the accused had any criminal intent, he told the court.

The defence also said in the bail plea that the deceased was an educated woman who could have walked out of the relationship if she was unhappy. Since there was no suicide note, the defence submitted that it could not be concluded that the accused abetted the suicide of his girlfriend.

The bail plea also stated that the woman did not answer the accused’s calls after she told him that she was going to die by suicide. The accused rushed back to her home, got the main door opened, and entered her flat only to find that she had already died by suicide, the plea said. The accused then took her to Seven Hills Hospital in Marol, where she was declared dead.

Additional sessions judge TT Aglawe directed the accused to be released after executing a bail bond of ₹25,000. The court directed the accused to cooperate with the investigation and visit the Powai police station every Wednesday between 10 am and 12 noon for the next 60 days or till the charge sheet is filed.

The couple had met in Delhi while the woman was training for her commercial pilot’s licence. The woman completed her training and moved to Mumbai in 2023 after getting a job at Air India.