india

Updated: Apr 25, 2019 03:42 IST

“A confessional statement, circumstantial evidence, autopsy report and a motive” are the key pieces of evidence against Apoorva Shukla Tiwari, the woman arrested for allegedly killing her husband Rohit Shekhar Tiwari, police said.

Crime branch officials said it would have helped them make a “watertight case” with “strong scientific evidence” had the body not been cremated before the arrival of the autopsy report.

“If we had access to the body, we could have collected DNA evidence as well. That would have helped us better establish the link between the killer and the victim,” a police officer, not authorised to speak to the media, said, adding that the woman’s confessional statement before the police is not admissible in court.

When the death was reported on April 16, the local police had sent the body for a post-mortem examination, but had allowed it to be cremated soon after. The police had gone by the statements of Shekhar’s relatives who had not suspected any foul play. But the autopsy report the next day pointed to murder.

Rajiv Ranjan, additional commissioner of police (crime branch), maintained that his team had “sufficient evidence to prove the prosecution’s case in court”. But he refused to elaborate, saying that “evidence cannot be discussed with the media”.

Now that the crime branch has obtained Apoorva’s custody for two days, they will seek to reconstruct the crime scene and find more evidence against her.

Elaborating on the “circumstantial evidence” against Apoorva, an investigator said a CCTV camera installed inside the house had established that only three persons had access to Shekhar’s room during the time of his death. Two of them were domestic helps and the third was Apoorva, the officer said.

“Apoorva has never denied that she went to Shekhar’s room, but our investigation revealed that she was the only one in his room that night. That is the circumstantial evidence against her,” the officer said.

The police said the two domestic helps who had access to Shekhar’s room had no reason to kill him. “Their livelihood depended on Shekhar. But Apoorva was in a turbulent marriage and had a reason to kill her husband.”