‘My daughter was harassed for dowry’, says mother of techie found dead in Bengaluru

Bhavya Handa, was newly married, and died on Saturday after a fall from her apartment building.

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On Saturday afternoon, a 26-year-old woman fell from the balcony of her apartment on the fourth floor in Kadubeesanahalli in Bengaluru.

Neighbours and security guards, who heard a loud scream and then a thud, came out of their homes to see what had happened. That’s when they saw the body of Bhavya Handa lying in a pool of blood.

One of the security guards, according to the police, saw her falling down.

Angered and shocked by their daughter’s death, Bhavya’s parents filed a dowry death complaint against Mohit, his sister-in-law Rajini and her husband Dheeraj at the Marathahalli Police Station on Saturday.

The police arrested Mohit, Rajini and Dheeraj on Sunday. The couple had been married only for 4 months.

“The neighbours rushed downstairs and were getting my daughter into their car when her husband, Mohit Verma also decided to accompany them to the hospital. They took her to Sakra Hospital. The doctors said that she was dead by the time they got to there,” said Sonia Handa, Bhavya’s mother.

According to Bhavya’s mother Sonia Handa, the neighbours told her that they had heard Mohit, Rajini and Dheeraj arguing loudly on the day the incident occurred. When they found her body, she had fallen on her back and was bleeding from her head.

“There was a bruise mark on her eye. Did someone assault her? She also had deep scrapes on her arms. That day, when they had fought, my daughter had called me up. She said that Mohit and Rajini were torturing her mentally and cried a lot. She was supposed to visit Jippy, our family friend to collect Rs 40,000 which Mohit had demanded that day. They were to meet him at a baby shower. My daughter wore jeans and a top after which Mohit called her an indecent woman, which is why the fight began,” Sonia Handa said.

“It had been four months and sixteen days since my daughter got married to Mohit. She had met him in Gujarat as he was her colleague in HCL. They were together for four years and got married on November 25, 2016 in New Delhi. She is our only daughter and hence we had thrown her a lavish wedding. A month after the wedding, the calls began coming in. Mohit would call us and express how upset he was that my daughter did not know how to cook. He demanded that I come to Bengaluru for a while and teach her,” Bhavya’s mother said.

That very day, Mohit allegedly demanded Rs 5 lakh, after which the couple began having rifts in their marriage, accused Bhavya’s mother.

“We did not have that much money at the time and so we had agreed to giving Rs 40,000 per month for five months. It was after this incident that we realized that my daughter was unhappy. Mohit used to pick a fight with her if she woke up late on her off days. He would demand that she wake up to cook for him if he came home late in the night. He would monitor what she wore, whom she spoke to. He tortured my daughter a lot,” Sonia Handa said.

The police are taking the statements of neighbours and the security guard, who saw her fall from the balcony.

“The security guard was the first one to see her after he heard someone scream. When he came near the garden area, he saw her fall. The neighbours have said that the couple fought a lot and the house help alleged that Bhavya was physically abused by her husband sometimes. The manager of the housing society had cleaned up the blood by the time the police arrived and hence there is lack of evidence. According to eyewitness reports she had fallen on her back. The investigation is still on,” said a police officer at the Marathahalli Police Station.

WhatsApp messages between Bhavya and her mother about the Rs 40,000 and phone conversations in which Bhavya narrated her ordeal to a friend have been handed over to the police.