Gurugram woman held for instigating lover to ‘push wife from balcony’

The police on Tuesday arrested a 35-year-old woman, Shefali Bhasin Tewari, for allegedly conspiring with her lover to kill his wife by pushing her from the balcony of their eighth floor apartment in an upscale condominium on the night of Karvachauth.

The deceased woman, Deepika Chauhan (32), a banker, had fallen to her death from the balcony of her eighth-floor apartment in Valley View Estate, Gwal Pahari, on October 27 at 9.37pm.

Her husband, Vikram Singh Chauhan, was arrested the next day for allegedly pushing Deepika when she confronted him about his extra marital affair with Shefali, who is married and lives in the same condominium. She is six months pregnant, the police said.

Shefali was arrested on Tuesday from her house on Gurugram-Faridabad Road after the police perused through reams of transcripted conversations, primarily from Google Talk and WhatsApp, detailing a “well thought-out conspiracy”, which helped the police join the dots in the case over the past fortnight.

A police officer privy to the investigation, requesting anonymity, said that about two hours before Deepika was murdered, Shefali had sent a Google Talk-message to Vikram at 7.43pm in response to his complaints that his wife was “shouting like hell after a physical fight”.

Investigators probing the case said the message, in verbatim, read, “Balcony se phek do (Throw her from the balcony)”. Nine minutes later, Vikram had replied: “I want to…badly right now…she is shouting (sic)”. To which Shefali responded: “toh kardo (then do it).”

A case was registered against the woman under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code at DLF Phase-1 police station. Vikram, booked under Section 302 (murder) of Indian Penal Code, is lodged in Bhondsi jail.