india

Updated: Apr 25, 2019 03:46 IST

Rohit Shekhar Tiwari and Apoorva Shukla Tiwari had courted each other for over a year but, after marriage, they lived together for just 18 days. When Apoorva did return to him three months later, she had a legal notice for Shekhar, who was on the hospital bed after a bypass heart surgery, police said.

“It was a turbulent and unhappy marriage right from the start,” said Rajiv Ranjan, additional commissioner of police (crime branch). “Initially it was just Apoorva who wanted a separation. But by the end, Shekhar, too, wanted a divorce.”

When Apoorva and Shekhar had met through a matrimonial website in May 2017, she already knew he was the son of former UP chief minister ND Tiwari — also the former governor of Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh — against whom Shekhar had won a paternity suit five years earlier, a senior police officer said.

“Apoorva was a Supreme Court lawyer and also claimed to be the national president of the youth wing of a political party’s trade union. She had political ambitions and believed that marrying Shekhar would help her get a firm footing in politics. But her dreams were shattered soon after she realised Shekhar himself was struggling to get into politics,” said the officer.

“Another setback for Apoorva came when she learnt about Shekhar’s mother’s will that divided their only property – a bungalow in Defence Colony – between him and his half brother Sidharth in a 60:40 ratio. According to the will, if either of the brothers died, the other one would get the property,” said the officer.

The third factor was her suspicion that the Shekhar’s distant sister-in-law was trying to break the marriage. “Sidharth had verbally announced that his share of the property would go to the nine-year-old son of the sister-in-law. Apoorva hated the woman and wanted her away from Shekhar,” said the officer. This was one of the alleged reasons for frequent quarrels between the couple. “It was such that Apoorva lived much of her married life away from Shekhar,” said Rajiv Ranjan. “When the couple stayed at their Defence Colony home, they slept in separate bedrooms,” said another officer.

Shekhar, meanwhile, suffered from a host of illnesses such as insomnia, heart ailments and anxiety. He held a degree in law, but wasn’t practicing, police said.

Shekhar had made headlines in 2008 after he filed a paternity suit against, ND Tiwari. DNA test released in 2012 confirmed that ND Tiwari was indeed the biological father and he publically acknowledged this in 2014.

Shekhar had fought the paternity suit for over four years, but did not choose to live at his father’s bungalow.