April 5, 1999
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CRIME When Love Kills The Romesh Sharma case gets a new twist with his girlfriend's murder. By Sayanthan Chakravarty
"Surendra did it, he kept his word ... the evil monster," Kunjum's mother Rani Budhiraja had sobbed after the murder was discovered at Sharma's Jai Mata Di farmhouse. She was referring to Sharma's nephew Surendra Mishra. Mishra, 26, who was arrested in Ahmedabad on March 23, confessed that four of his accomplices who are still absconding stabbed Kunjum to death. He also told the police that Kunjum had been killed on Sharma's instructions. Also arrested are two of Sharma's close associates, Dolly and Sonu. The two had helped the assailants escape even though caretaker Ram Achal Tiwari, a key witness to the murder, had raised an alarm. Only a few months ago, Sharma's attractive consort who doubled up as his business associate and lover had told India Today in a courtroom, "We are grateful to Romeshji for all that he has done for us." Sharma had provided Kunjum's family a bungalow in south Delhi, plenty of cash, gold and fixed deposits worth several lakhs of rupees in her name. It is also believed that much of Sharma's Rs 500 crore worth property, acquired through dubious means all over the country may have been bequeathed to her. According to Rani, Surendra felt that once Kunjum married the conman, she would take over Sharma's real-estate empire. "Investigation in this direction is going on," says DCP (South) P.K. Srivastava. The planning was perfect. As in the past, Kunjum had gone to the farmhouse to offer Navaratri prayers at the temple Sharma had built inside the bungalow. That morning, Mishra himself had handed over the farmhouse keys to Kunjum when she visited him at his Mayfair Garden house. Mishra says he never joined the killers; he told the police that having given the necessary instructions he left for Noida. Kunjum was attacked shortly after her prayers by the four men who first smashed a bottle on her head and then stabbed her. There was high drama at Kunjum's cremation last Monday as Sharma accompanied by a hundred policemen came out on parole. Minutes before she was consigned to the flames, a sobbing Sharma draped Kunjum's body in a red saree, put vermilion on her forehead as the priests chanted mantras, saw his "wife" one last time and left quietly. The police believe that the "marriage" was a ploy by Sharma to hoodwink the public, particularly Kunjum's mother and siblings. "Kunjum obviously knew too much about Sharma. This may have unnerved him. The property angle is, of course, very much there," says Srivastava. A secret note with the Home Ministry says, "Sharma is very sharp, shrewd, witty and quick thinking. He can always judge what the interrogator wants." By marrying a dead Kunjum he probably did what he does best -- play the master conman. |
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It was perhaps the first
"marriage" ever to be solemnised at a cremation ground. Shortly before noon on
March 20, Kunjum Budhiraja, 29, was killed in a plush south Delhi farmhouse owned by
Romesh Sharma, serving time in Tihar Jail on a host of charges, including his alleged
links with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Mourners at her funeral the next day watched in
disbelief as Sharma went about "marrying" the dead Kunjum. 
