Killer Romance
IT had all the makings of a B-grade Bollywood potboiler: A young woman, a powerful man, illicit romance, trips around the country… and, finally, murder.
More than two years after poetess Madhumita Shukla was killed in her Paper Mill residence in Lucknow, the case remains lost in illogical convolutions. The Mayawati government, seriously compromised by the alleged involvement of Bahujan Samaj Party MLA and former minister Amarmani Tripathi in the case, has been voted out; in its place is the rule of arch-rival Mulayam Singh Yadav—to whom, ironically, Tripathi shifted allegiance alongwith 39 other BSP MLAs.
That’s not the only movement in the case. Mayawati ordered a CBI inquiry into the case in June 2003. Police and CBI investigations led to the arrest of three people—Rohit Chaturvedi, Santosh Rai and Vinod Pandey—for shooting Madhumita on the evening of May 9. All three are currently in jail.
Tripathi and his wife Madhumani, who were named co-conspirators in the case, were also arrested and sent to jail; both are currently out on bail. The case drags on in the sessions court in Lucknow.
More: indianexpress.com