New Delhi: Delhi Police on Wednesday arrested Rohit Shekhar Tiwari's lawyer wife Apoorva on charges of his murder, citing a "turbulent and unhappy" marriage as the motive, a senior police official said.
Rohit Shekhar, the son of the late veteran politician N D Tiwari, was smothered to death on the intervening night of April 15 and 16, an autopsy report said.
"On the night of the incident, the couple had a fight over a relative. Rohit had been drinking all the way from Uttarakhand to Delhi and was not in a condition to resist. During the fight she pounced on him and smothered him," Rajeev Ranjan, additional commissioner (Crime), told reporters.
The officer said the couple apparently did not have a happy marriage and had frequent fights.
"She has confessed. As of now, from the fact and circumstances, it seems the killing was not planned. The background was there that they had a turbulent marriage and Rohit Shekhar and his family were thinking of separation. After interrogation, it was found that Apoorva Shukla Tiwari and Rohit had a turbulent marriage. All her hopes with the marriage were belied," Ranjan said.
Apoorva, a lawyer practising in the Supreme Court, was being questioned in connection with the killing since last Sunday.
Discrepancies were found in her statements which led police to suspect her involvement, the officer added.
Rohit's mother Ujjwala on Sunday had alleged that Apoorva and her family were money-minded and wanted to acquire the family property. She had earlier said the couple had started having fights right from the first day of marriage in 2017. The two had met through a matrimonial site.
On April 16, a servant found Rohit was bleeding from the nose.
According to the postmortem report, the death occurred within two hours of his last meal around 11 pm.
The Delhi Police registered a case of murder after his autopsy report stated that he died of asphyxia due to strangulation. The case was then transferred to the crime branch for investigation.
Meanwhile, Apoorva Shukla was sent to two-day police custody by a Delhi court.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat allowed interrogation of Shukla after the police sought her 3-day custody.
The judge also directed that the accused will be medically examined as per rules and allowed her lawyer to be present with her during interrogation and serve a copy of FIR.
The police told the court that they want to find out more clues related to this case and ruled out the possibility of any other suspect.
The lawyer appearing for Shukla opposed the plea for custody saying that she has cooperated throughout the investigation.
Born out of wedlock, Rohit fought a six-year-long paternity battle with his late father, after he refused to accept him as his biological son. On April 24, 2014, the Delhi High Court, declared Rohit Tiwari's biological son. While passing the order, the court took into note the report of Tiwari's DNA test, which proved that Rohit was indeed his son. Tiwari later married Ujjwala in Lucknow.
Narayan Dutt Tiwari died at the age of 93 on October 18, his birthday, last year. The Congress veteran, who had served in various positions at the Centre, was the chief of minister of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
Rohit Tiwari joined the BJP ahead of the 2017 Uttarakhand assembly polls and had recently indicated he could join the Congress.
