The allegations levelled by Atul Subhash in his suicide note are baseless and Nikita Singhania, his estranged wife, has all the answers, Nikita’s uncle Sushil Singhania has said. Sushil Singhania is an accused in the abetment to suicide case registered by Atul’s brother in Bengaluru. Police have said they have sent a team to Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur to question Nikita, her mother Nisha, brother Anurag and uncle Sushil.
In what is the Singhanias’ first response to the massive row triggered by Atul Subhash’s death by suicide and his allegations of harassment against Nikita and her family members, 70-year-old Sushil Singhania said, “I came to know from media reports that I have been named in the FIR. But I have no connection with this. The (divorce) case proceedings have been on for the past three years. Now suddenly this has happened. Our family is not guilty. The court will deliver its judgment.”
“Subhash’s allegations are baseless. Nikita is not here. Once she returns, she will respond to everything. She has an answer to every allegation they have made. I live separately. I am her uncle, but I don’t have much information about the case. They have been handling it,” he said.
This afternoon, a police team reached the Singhanias’ home in Jaunpur, creating an uproar in the area. A police officer said they had just come to ensure the family’s security. They denied any knowledge of Bengaluru police coming to Jaunpur.
Atul Subhash, a 34-year-old techie, was found dead at his Bengaluru home on Monday morning. A ‘justice is due’ placard and a 24-page suicide note was found in his room. The note accused Nikita and her family members of harassing him during the divorce case proceedings to make him pay huge amounts as maintenance and alimony.
Atul’s brother Bikas Kumar has said in his complaint to the police that Atul has detailed in his suicide note how he was being mentally and physically harassed and extorted by the accused.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Whitefield, Shivakumar told news agency ANI, “Atul Subhash committed suicide during the early hours of 9th of December. A complaint has been lodged at the Marathahalli police station in Bengaluru regarding this. Multiple cases were running against him in Uttar Pradesh. His wife and her family members demanded money from him to settle this issue and harassed him. For those reasons, he died by suicide. Based on this complaint, we registered an FIR against the accused. An investigation is underway.”
In an 81-minute video he recorded before dying by suicide, Atul Subhash said he married in 2019 after finding Nikita on a matchmaking website. The couple had a son the next year. He has alleged that his wife’s family would repeatedly demand money running into several lakhs. When he refused to give more money, his wife left the Bengaluru home with their son in 2021.
The next year, Atul wrote in the note, Nikita filed a case against him and his family under multiple sections, including murder and unnatural sex. She alleged that he demanded a dowry of Rs 10 lakh and this put pressure on her father and he died of a heart attack. “This is some poor Bollywood plot. She has already confessed that her father was suffering from long term illness in her cross examination. Her father was getting treated from AIIMS for the last 10 years for heart disease, diabetes etc. Doctors gave him few months and hence we got married quickly,” he has said. This case, he said, was subsequently withdrawn.
Atul has said that his wife and her family first demanded Rs 1 crore to settle the case, but later hiked this to Rs 3 crore. He has detailed a court exchange in which he said that when he told the judge that men are dying by suicide due to false cases, his wife replied, “Then why don’t you?” At this, he said, the judge laughed and asked her to leave the room. Atul has also alleged that the judge said he “must think about his family” and demanded Rs 5 lakh to “settle the case”.
The 34-year-old’s suicide note has strong remarks on the justice system, especially its handling of marital disputes. Raging against the law dealing with such cases, Atul wrote in his suicide note, “The more I work hard and become better at my work, the more I and my family will be harassed and extorted and the whole legal system will encourage and help my harassers… Now, with me gone, there won’t be any money and there won’t be any reason to harass my old parents and my brother. I may have destroyed my body but it has saved everything I believe in.”
