Fijian-born Indian woman found dead in Sector 20 home

Express News Service Posted: Jun 11, 2008 at 0239 hrs
Chandigarh, June 10 Husband says suicide, police await sister’s arrival from Australia before postmortem

A Fijian woman, who was married to a local resident and had been living in Chandigarh for the last three years, was found dead under mysterious circumstances in her Sector 20 home on Monday. Rosy was lying face down on the floor of her room, with traces of vomit around, police said.

While Rosy’s husband Pradeep Sharma claimed that she committed suicide, the police have not found any suicide note. The police are awaiting her sister’s arrival from Australia on Thursday before sending the body for postmortem.

According to officers, the couple had strained relations for past some time.

Pradeep said he was “used to her suicide dramas” and hence ignored her when he saw her lying on the floor in the morning. It was only after six hours that he rushed her to hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival.

“We had a fight the night before. She was furious because I had brought food from outside. I went to my room and slept. Around 9 am on the next day, I found her lying on the floor. She was snoring and I did not take it seriously. When I saw her in the same position at 3 pm, I realised something was wrong. I called up my parents and rushed her to the PGI,” Pradeep told Newsline.

According to him, Rosy had attempted suicide earlier also.

Pradeep works with the Aggarwal Distributors in Sector 26. His father Surjit Raj Sharma was an inspector with the Chandigarh Police.

Rosy, 33, was a woman of Indian origin born in Fiji. She met Pradeep in 1998 when he had gone to Australia for studies. They got married in 2001 and came back to India in 2005.

Rosy leaves behind two children, aged eight and nine.

“Since she was a Muslim and I am a Hindu, our families were against our marriage. Our children were born before we got married,” said Pradeep.

Rosy was the youngest of six sisters and is survived by an aged father. Her brother is in New Zealand. Her brother-in-law reportedly called the Sector 19 police station on Monday and requested to halt the postmortem till they reach India on Thursday morning.

Sources said Rosy was desperate to go to Australia as she had not gone back in these three years. She had worked in a call centre here for a brief period.

“We are waiting for the victim’s family members to arrive. The picture will be clear once they give their statements. A postmortem will be conducted then and if anything found suspicious, action will be taken accordingly. For the time being, we are probing the case from suicide angle,” said Senior Superintendent of Police S S Srivastava.