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The spot at the Adityapur high-rise where Rakhi Singh’s body was found on Sunday. Picture by Bhola Prasad
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A 28-year-old woman apparently jumped to her death from the fourth floor of an Adityapur high-rise near NIT in Seraikela-Kharsawan district after a heated argument with her husband late on Sunday night, but her relatives alleged foul-play.
They alleged Rakhi Singh, a mother of two, was murdered by her in-laws and husband, who wanted to join her elder brother Rajiv Kumar Singh’s flourishing business — the root of Sunday’s arguments.
Rajiv, who subsequently lodged a murder complaint with RIT police station on the basis of which Abhay Singh (32), his father Ramjee Singh (ex-commandant, CRPF) and mother Neelam Singh were arrested, further alleged that they had been mentally torturing his sister for money.
Officer-in-charge of RIT police station Rajesh Prakash Sinha said they had registered a case of murder under Section 302 of the IPC and Section 498 of the Dowry Act against the three.
“We are trying to find out whether it was a case of suicide or murder. Accordingly, we will change the sections if it is established that the woman killed herself,” Sinha added.
Rakhi used to live with Abhay and their two children — a six-year-old son and four-year-old daughter —at the upscale Aditya Syndicate in a duplex gifted to her by her elder brother at the time of her marriage in 2005.
Abhay, a software engineer, quit his job in 2008 to start his own dry cleaning company. But, Rakhi was against him joining Rajiv’s real estate business.
Sources said his dry cleaning business wasn’t doing well and Abhay expressed his wish to join Rajiv’s real estate business. The couple had been quarrelling frequently during the past three months but things took a turn for the worse on Sunday when Rakhi locked herself in a room around 9pm after an altercation with Abhay and threatened to commit suicide.
Thereafter, she opened a back door of their duplex and ran to an adjoining apartment of the complex, climbed to the fourth floor and jumped from a corridor around 10.45pm.
Family members, including her brother Rajiv, rushed her to Tata Main Hospital, a 20-minute drive, where she was declared brought dead.
“We gave Abhay a duplex for free, a car and a flat to his father at a throwaway price. But they still tried to extort more dowry from us. When we expressed our inability to give more cash, they, especially Abhay, started torturing my sister. In the end, they pushed her from the fourth floor of the building where Abhay’s parents live,” Rajiv claimed in the FIR.
Abhay, in police custody, admitted he wanted to become a partner in Aditya Syndicate and that Rajiv had promised to grant his wish. But, he denied he had a hand in Rakhi’s death, saying he was at home at the time of the incident but had no idea she had gone to another apartment.
Additional SP Seraikela-Kharsawan Deepak Sinha visited the spot along with Sinha.
Rakhi’s body has been sent to MGM Medical College’s mortuary for post-mortem.
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