Police analysing phones found after beach discovery of body

Two phones belonging to Sonam Shelar – the five-months pregnant Wellington woman whose body was found on a remote Wairarapa beach – have been recovered by police.

Yesterday, Sonam Shelar’s husband, Sagar Shelar, said police had asked him to supply them with his wife’s passcodes. She owned two mobile phones, one of which was a waterproof iPhone 10, he said.

‘‘The other [phone] – police said – was not working, which makes me think they were found in the water,’’ he said.

Detective Senior Sergeant Warwick McKee said the devices were discovered in Wellington’s Island Bay, 65km by sea from White Rock Beach where the body was found washed up on Wednesday.

Police were working through analysis of the phones, including looking at polling and call data, he said.

McKee declined to comment on claims by family of the 26-year-old that she had been murdered. But he confirmed the police investigation, now named Operation Zeplin, had not been upgraded to a homicide investigation.

Police had a provisional cause of death but would not say what it was. They were waiting for forensic analysis to come back to confirm the actual cause, McKee said.

The autopsy had revealed the sex of her foetus, but police would not yet be making that information public.

They were continuing to liaise with her family and were providing support, McKee said.

‘‘We’d like to get some answers as to how she died and ended up at the beach here at South Wairarapa.’’

Police were yesterday continuing their scene examination in Wairarapa, which involved the beach and nearby White Rock Rd.

McKee said investigators were also appealing to the public for any sightings of Sonam Shelar on Friday, November 16, even though her last reported sighting was on the morning of Saturday, November 17.

Sonam Shelar and her husband lived with flatmates in the Wellington suburb of Khandallah. She was last seen by her husband on the Saturday but her flatmates last saw her the previous day.

When asked if there were persons of interest, McKee said police were speaking to a ‘‘large number of people’’ about her death. They were also working through a significant amount of CCTV footage from cars and businesses.

Sagar Shelar was co-operating with police and was free to leave the country if he wanted to, McKee said.

On Thursday, a police dive squad searched for clothing in Island Bay. Police were also seen going into Sagar Shelar’s apartment after taking a car back there in the afternoon following a forensic sweep.

Yesterday, Sagar Shelar said police had returned his car after a forensic search, and that was the last time he had any contact with them.

He still did not know how his wife died, or whether foul play was involved. He had not been to the morgue to identify her body.

‘‘I haven’t seen her and I want to see her.’’ Shelar said the two had been together for a year, after an arranged marriage in India, but Sonam had moved to New Zealand in April. Sagar Shelar has previously said his pregnant wife’s mood had ‘‘changed a lot’’ in the days following an ultrasound on November 15 that was inconclusive as to the baby’s sex.

But a spokesman for Sonam’s family in India, Harshal Patkar, told the New Zealand Herald that the ultrasound had not upset Sonam and she would not have hurt herself.

Sonam’s family – her mother in particular – believed she was murdered, he said.

Sagar Shelar said he had not heard from Sonam’s family since her body had been found, and said they said those things ‘‘because they are in shock’’.

Shelar told Stuff on Wednesday, ‘‘I know that I’m still their first suspect but I know that I haven’t done anything wrong.’’

The manager of White Rock Station, who did not want to be named, said one of the surfers who found the body was pretty shaken.