‘Hubby called only 3 times in the day’

They had fought the day before and he knew that his wife was unwell. But Kedar Barde, 26, called Bidushi only three times on Monday, even though he had “an intuition that something bad was going to happen”, the police said. Puja Changoiwala reports.

They had fought the day before and he knew that his wife was unwell. But Kedar Barde, 26, called Bidushi only three times on Monday, even though he had “an intuition that something bad was going to happen”, the police said.

HT Image

Police claimed that after finding his wife’s dead body, Kedar deleted several text messages they had exchanged.

The software engineer husband of 23-year-old Bidushi has come under the police scanner.

Before Kedar left for work on Monday, Bidushi had taken her anti-depressants as well as checked her blood sugar level, which was as low as 55. She informed him that she was unwell, the police said.

He left for his office at Nariman Point on at 7.50 am. Around 8.10am, he sent an affectionate message to Bidushi.

“After a while, he called her on her phone, but she did not respond. Despite knowing that she was extremely unwell and her condition could deteriorate any minute, he called her only thrice throughout the day,” said an officer from DN Nagar police station.

“He could have called Dr Shende who lives on the first floor and asked him to check on her, but he did not bother,” the officer said, adding that when Kedar was questioned about it he said he had refrained from calling Bidushi as she had an audition.

According to the police, Kedar usually didn’t send such text messages to his wife. “But that day, he did. He then called his father-in-law Shantanu Dash at 7pm and told him that Bidushi wasn’t answering her phone. Dash said in three years, Kedar had never called him, irrespective of the situation the couple was in,” the officer said.

The officer added that Kedar had confessed to having a “bad intuition” throughout the day, thinking that something wrong was going to happen to Bidushi.

“Before he came to the police, he deleted text messages from his cellphone about their fights. When we questioned him, he said that they were extremely negative and hence he deleted them,” said another officer.

The police said they were checking CCTV footage of the building and adjoining areas to see if Kedar had reported to work. “We have not given Kedar a clean chit,” said a senior officer.