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Retired cop gets justice for son; daughter-in-law, lover charged with abetment
Finding his son’s mobile phone in a cupboard a month after he had died by suicide helped a retired policeman get his daughter-in-law and her lover charged for abetting his son’s death
MUMBAI: Finding his son’s mobile phone in a cupboard a month after he had died by suicide helped a retired policeman get his daughter-in-law and her lover charged for abetting his son’s death. Before he died by suicide, the 28-year-old man, who ran an eatery in Dadar, had made a video recording, saying he was unable to suffer the alleged mental harassment by his wife and her lover, any longer. In the video, he also begged his father not to let his wife and her lover off the hook.
The mobile phone also contained other allegedly incriminating evidence, which led the Chunabhatti police to charge them with abetment to suicide under section 108 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023.
Police said the deceased’s father had retired from the Mumbai police force as a sub-inspector in November last year. He had been living in a government colony in Chunabhatti with his wife, two sons and a daughter. His elder son, the 28-year-old deceased, got married in 2020.
After he retired, the father, who is also the complainant in the case, shifted to his hometown in Yavatmal but his deceased son, his daughter-in-law and the couple’s two-year-old daughter continued to live in the government accommodation in Chunabhatti, which he had not yet surrendered.
According to the First Information Report (FIR), the deceased and his wife fought frequently over her relationship with her lover. She apparently chatted via text messages and spoke with her boyfriend, blatantly, over the phone.
In October 2024, on Dussehra, the deceased had left the house to play dandiya, and when he returned, he claims he allegedly found his wife with her boyfriend in their home. The fight that followed grew so serious that family had to intervene. But, the FIR reads, his wife allegedly did not end the affair.
Police said the deceased had discussed his predicament with his father. He told him the only reason he had not left his wife was to spare their two-year-old daughter the fallout of a separation. He then died by suicide on April 18, in Mumbai, when his parents were at their native place.
After performing the last rites of his son in Yavatmal, his father was determined to seek justice. He had already found a letter his son had written in a book in their Yavatmal home, detailing the mental harassment allegedly by his wife and expressing his heartbreak, reads the FIR.
So his father returned to Mumbai on May 17, to pursue the case. Two days later, he found his son’s mobile phone in a cupboard in the Chunabhatti house. The phone had a video recording made by his son just before he died. In the video, his son had apparently said, “Dad, don’t spare my wife and her boyfriend.”
The deceased also named a woman who was allegedly helping his wife and her lover by providing them a house in Satara, where they would go together. In the video, he also said he wanted his two-year-old daughter to be handed over to his own mother, according to the FIR.
While checking the phone’s gallery, the father found the image of a note written by the deceased, in which he had alleged that his wife was having an affair with three different individuals. One of her boyfriend’s had allegedly taunted him, the note read, saying that if the deceased would die, he would “take care of his wife”. In a chat found in the mobile phone, the wife’s boyfriend had also said he wished him dead, reads the FIR.
