Amid the outcry over Bengaluru techie Atul Subhash’s death by suicide over alleged harassment by his wife, Nikita Singhania, details have emerged of a complaint filed by her in 2022, alleging harassment and assault for dowry. Ms Singhania has alleged that he treated the husband-wife relationship “like a beast” and his family’s demand for dowry contributed to her father suffering a stroke and dying. 

In his 24-page suicide note, however, Subhash has replied to nearly every allegation made in the complaint.

Ms Singhania filed the complaint in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur – where her family lives – in April 2022 claiming she was harassed and assaulted for dowry. Subhash, his brother and their parents were named as accused. 

Apart from the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, the complaint also had charges like cruelty by husband or relatives, assault, and criminal intimidation under the Indian Penal Code.

According to news agency PTI, Nikita said she got married to Subhash on April 26, 2019, and her husband and in-laws were dissatisfied with what her parents gave them during the wedding and demanded Rs 10 lakh more.

“(They) started torturing me physically and mentally for dowry. When I told my parents about the harassment and dowry, my parents explained to me that everything will be fine, listen and keep living with it. But no improvement of any kind came in my husband and in-laws,” she said in the complaint, according to the PTI report. 

“My husband started to beat me up after drinking alcohol and started treating the husband-wife relationship with me like a beast. He used to transfer my entire salary from my account to his account by threatening me,” she added.

In his suicide note, however, Subhash states that, according to Ms Singhania, he earned Rs 40 lakh a year as an Artificial Intelligence professional when she left the house in 2021 and Rs 80 lakh after that. He said her claim of his family asking for Rs 10 lakh was “laughable”.

“We demanded Rs 10 lakh dowry is the most laughable allegation. My wife has claimed that I had a CTC of Rs 40 lakhs when she left the house. My wife also claimed that I have a CTC of Rs 80 Lakhs later in the case. Why would a man making Rs 40 or 80 lakhs would ever demand Rs 10 lakhs and leave his wife and child (sic),” he wrote.

On the allegation of him beating his wife, the techie said she had never produced any evidence of this.

“I used to beat her up black and blue after getting drunk. A well built man like me, if decides to beat someone black and blue (sic), would leave a person with broken bones, bleeding and at least some marks. Why did she not produce any photo of it or anyone who is a witness ( we often had a house maid, cook etc),” he wrote in the note.

Father’s Death

In her complaint, Ms Singhania also claimed that, irritated by the words of her in-laws and because of their demand for dowry, her father’s health deteriorated suddenly and he suffered a stroke on August 17, 2019. She said he died during treatment. 

In his suicide note, Subhash called this a “poor Bollywood plot” and claimed her father had been undergoing treatment for diabetes and heart disease for 10 years. He said doctors had given Ms Singhania’s father a few months to live.

“Me and my family murdered her father by asking for dowry of Rs 10 lakhs and her father got 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 AlIMS for the last 10 years for heart disease, dlabetes etc. Doctors gave him a few months and hence we got married quickly after just a few months after getting connected (sic),” he wrote.

Nikita Singhani, her mother Nisha Singhania, brother Anurag Singhania and uncle Sushil Singhania have been charged with abetment of suicide after Atul Subhash died by suicide in his house in Bengaluru on Monday. 

In his note, Subhash had said he was dying by suicide because his wife and her relatives had filed a slew of false cases against him and his family and were trying to get him to pay Rs 2 lakh a month as maintenance for her and the couple’s four-year-old son.

“The more I work hard and become better at my work, the more l 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,” he wrote.

Bengaluru:

The 34-year-old techie who died by suicide at his home in Bengaluru had been planning his death for months and had prepared a detailed checklist of everything he needed to do in the days leading up to it, ticking off every task once it was done. A printout of the checklist was pasted on the wall of his Bengaluru home, right next to another printed paper with the words ‘Justice is due’. 

Atul Subhash, who hanged himself on Monday, left behind a 24-page suicide note and recorded a nearly 90-minute long video in which he alleges that his wife and her relatives had filed a slew of false cases against him and his family and were trying to get him to pay Rs 2 lakh a month as maintenance for her and the couple’s four-year-old son. Subhash, who is originally from Bihar, also levelled allegations against a judge in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur, where his in-laws live and some of his cases were being heard, claiming that she had demanded Rs 5 lakh from him to settle them. He also wrote a letter to the President, criticising the criminal justice system and highlighting a rising trend of false cases being filed against men by their estranged wives. 

The checklist prepared by Subhash was divided into three parts – ‘Before last day’, ‘Last day’ and ‘Execute last moment’ – and included items like removing his phone fingerprint and face recognition, presumably so that it could be accessed by others after he was dead; leaving his car, bike and room keys on the fridge; and completing all his office work and submitting his office laptop and charger.

While the list has a column for ticking off the tasks in the ‘Last day’ and ‘Execute last moment’ sections, it has ‘Done’ printed against the items in the ‘Before last day’ section, indicating that these had already been completed before the list was printed out. These included securing his finances, finishing office tasks and legal preparations, compiling all communications, and backing up data and “creating redundancies”.

In the ‘Last day’ section, the techie, who works in Artificial Intelligence according to his suicide note, had another task related to creating a local data backup as a redundancy. The other items included removing the fingerprint from his phone, uploading his scanned suicide note, clearing all payments, uploading his video suicide note and submitting his laptop, charger and ID card at his office. 

On the top of the list on his ‘Execute Last Moment’ section was having a bath, followed by keeping his car, bike and room keys on the fridge and the suicide note on the table. The focus on the car keys was also evident from the police complaint filed by Subhash’s brother, Bikas Kumar, who said the techie had sent him several messages saying goodbye and sharing the Google Maps location of his car. The other items on the list included sending messages to his lawyers and family and sending mails to the High Court and Supreme Court – after checking attachments – in which he had complained about the judge assigned to his case, who allegedly took bribes. 

‘Took Months’

The fact that this list was carefully planned was also reflected in Subhash’s suicide note, in which he mentions that it took him months to ensure that all his “pending responsibilities” were completed. 

“It took me a few months to make sure that I complete my pending responsibilities I had towards my family and finish my work commitments etc. Also a lot of government office work is slow, that also led to this delay in suicide. I hope this delay will not go against me and will not help harassers and extorters of me and my family,” the techie wrote.  

“The more | work hard and become better at my work, the more l 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,” he said in another part of the note. 

Instigation?

In his suicide note, Subhash said his wife and her family’s cases against him included one under the Dowry Prohibition Act and others pertaining to sections like cruelty against a woman. He said when he had pointed out to the judge at one point that men are dying by suicide because of false cases, his wife had asked him why he wasn’t doing so. He claimed the judge had also laughed at this while ordering his wife to leave the room and then his mother-in-law had asked why he had not died by suicide yet. 

Subhash said when he had asked his mother-in-law how she and her daughter would get money when he was gone, she said she would get it from his parents and ensure that his family kept doing the rounds of courts for life. 

“It seems that Devi Saraswati herself made my mother in law disclose her plans and the solution of all the problems too. This incident along with instigation to commit suicide from my wife and the face of the laughing judge mocking my helplessness has rendered my faith in legal system destroyed and has prompted my action of committing suicide (sic),” he wrote.

The police have registered an abutment of suicide case against Subhash’s wife and some members of his family, according to news agency PTI.