The arrest of an Army Major for allegedly killing a fellow officer’s wife he was ‘obsessed’ with is not the first incident of alleged inappropriate conduct in the history of the country’s Armed forces. In the past, a number of such cases have hogged the limelight at different points in time.
Here are some of such cases.
1959-Nanavati case
One of the most infamous incidents was the KM Nanavati case. Commander Nanavati, a Naval Commander, was tried for the murder of Prem Ahuja, his wife Sylvia’s lover April 27, 1959. Commander Nanavati, accused under section 302, was initially declared not guilty by a jury but the verdict was dismissed by the Bombay High Court and the case was retried as a bench trial. This was among the last cases to be heard as a jury trial in India. Bombay Governor Vijayalakshmi Pandit finally pardoned Nanavati.
1982-Sikand murder
Lt Col SJ Chaudhary was convicted of murdering a Delhi businessman, 40-year-old Kishan Sikand, October 2, 1982. He was sentenced to life term by a lower court after facing trial for 26 years. He was acquitted by the high court in 2009. The accused was angry over Sikand’s proximity to his estranged wife. The officer’s relations with his wife had gone sour and they were engaged in a matrimonial dispute. To eliminate Sikand, the accused had despatched a parcel bomb to his house in Delhi.
2007-Capt Megha Razdan’s death
A woman Army officer committed suicide at her official residence in Kunjawani army camp in Jammu in 2007. Captain Megha Razdan of 113 Engineering Regiment committed suicide. She was married to Captain Chaitanya Bhatwadekar who was dealing with chemical and biological warfare. A month after their marriage, Megha got to know about Chaitanya’s extra-marital affair with a Pune girl. When Chaitanya came to know about it, he started ill-treating his wife which forced her to commit suicide July 1, 2007.
2008-Neeraj Grover murder
This was one of the most gruesome incidents of killing. Neeraj Grover was a television executive working for Synergy Adlabs, a Mumbai based production house. He was found dead in May 2008, a crime for which actress Maria Susairaj and her boyfriend Lieutenant Emile Jerome Mathew were arrested. Mathew was eventually found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and for destroying evidence. Susairaj was acquitted of the killing itself, but found guilty of destroying evidence.
2018-Shailaja Dwivedi’s murder
Major Nikhil Handa, 40, was arrested Sunday night from Meerut for allegedly killing a fellow officer’s wife Shailaja Dwivedi. He was ‘obsessed’ with his fellow officer’s wife and wanted to marry her. The woman’s body was found with her throat slit near the Brar Square in Delhi Cantonment area. Major Handa, who is married with two kids, knew the woman and her husband, also a Major in the Army, since 2015 when both of them were posted in Nagaland. Handa was Monday sent to four-day police custody by a Delhi court.