New Delhi:
Five days after 22-year-old Paras Bhasin's body was found decapitated near a railway track in East Delhi, his father-in-law Satish Mittal today said that his daughter married Paras under pressure.
"Paras' sister had texted my son informing about the marriage, Shaily told me about it on September 1. I didn't believe at first, then asked my daughter. I then went to my lawyer to consult," said Mr Mittal.
"I came to know gradually from Shaily that he was always threatening her, slashing his wrist, and pressurising her to act. It is not right to say they were seeing each other for six years, Paras' family has never got in touch with us," he added.
Mr Mittal also said that his daughter knew that they would never have accepted an inter-caste marriage. "We don't accept the marriage. We never attended the marriage," he said.
Mr Mittal said that Shaily regretted the marriage. "She said she did not understand how she could have had a relation with him. She realised she had all the facilities in our house."
Giving details about the sequence of events, Mr Mittal said, "On August 24, when I was looking for a match for my daughter, my wife called me and told me that Shaily is disturbed. When I returned home, I came to know that Shaily had met Paras' family members at a mall. I learnt she had an affair with Paras. I reasoned with her, and she was fine. But after a few days, she called me saying she was on railway tracks trying to attempt suicide. We immediately asked her to come back and told her we will agree to what she says. We told her we will see the situation. We called Paras a few days later and asked her what he does job, background etc. We were not completely convinced so we asked him to get a proper job and told him we will consider him only then."
Mr Bhasin was found dead on Saturday - his head was missing, a tattoo of his wife's name, Shaily Mittal, helped identify him - but it took the police nearly three days to register a case of murder, after first inexplicably describing it as a suicide.
The police said on Tuesday that reports that Mr Bhasin's corpse had been found headless were inaccurate. They say he was run over by a train, and that the impact left his body severely dismembered. They say they cannot rule out whether he committed suicide - a notion that deeply upsets his family, which blames his in-laws for his death.
Shaily, along with her father, was questioned by the police on Tuesday. She claimed they prepared the note ahead of their suicide attempt a few days ago to kill themselves together by getting run over by a train. She also said that they were too scared to go through with it. Shaily also told the police that Paras had tried to kill himself on May 8 by slitting his wrist and that she married him the very next day fearing he may try to kill himself again.
A man who reported his death to Mr Bhasin's family was identified on Tuesday as a passer-by, who found Mr Bhasin's ID near the railway tracks and phoned his home.
Mr Bhasin secretly married Shaily, the young woman he was in love with, nearly four months ago, says his brother. However, because the bride's family was against the relationship, Ms Mittal continued to live at her parents' home, without acknowledging her wedding.
On August 24, she allegedly broke the news of her marriage to her family. A day later, Mr Bhasin's family met her mother at a mall. Her father made phone calls to the Bhasins' neighbours, inquiring about the family. On August 29, Mr Bhasin finally met his father-in law, who he would later tell an uncle, humiliated him.