Woman’s drowning an accident

Sonam Shelar, the pregnant Wellington woman whose body was found on a remote Wairarapa beach in 2018, died by drowning, according to a coroner’s report.

It was suspected Shelar, who had lived in New Zealand with her husband for seven months and was five months pregnant, had died by suicide.

Now a coroner’s report released to Stuff finds the 26-year-old drowned in a turbulent sea. But why she got in the water when she could not swim remains amystery.

Coroner Tracey Fitzgibbon outlined Shelar’s final moments between her Khandallah flat and Island Bay.

On November 17, 2018, Sagar Shelar reported that his wife was missing. He last saw her alive at 8.30am. Surveillance footage shows she caught the bus to Island Bay at 10.13am and at 10.51am was walking towards the beach. Sonam liked the ocean, her husband said.

But a stranger would recall seeing her crying on the beach on the day she went missing.

Sagar called his wife while at work that morning, becoming worried when she did not pick up.

Phone records confirm he went home at lunchtime to check on her. By 2.30pm, he had gone to the police station and later filed a missing person’s report.

Interviews with her landlord and flatmates show a couple who seemed happy enough. Live-in landlord Keith Scott said the pair laughed together but it was not ‘‘your usual newlywed happiness’’.

Her family in India suspected foul play might be involved but police found there was no evidence it was amurder.

The coroner was not satisfied her actions amounted to suicide.

‘‘Mrs Shelar left no suicide notes and had given no indication she wanted to end her own life. Accordingly her intentions at the time cannot be established.’’