VASCO: The Vasco Police on Saturday registered a case of dowry death against Anurag Singh Rajawat for the alleged death of his wife and her mother on the basis of the report submitted by the Mormugao Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM).
According to the FIR, Rajawat allegedly subjected his wife to cruelty or harassment over demanding Rs 20 lakh dowry and intentionally left LPG gas knob open to cause fire. The accused left the house early in the morning on the pretext of shopping, due to which his pregnant wife Shivani Rajawat and her mother Jaidevi Chauhan sustained burn injuries with the vapour cloud explosion and further succumbed to the injuries.
The case has been registered against Rajawat under Section 304-B of IPC.
In a report sent to the Vasco Police on Friday, Mormugao Deputy Collector and SDM Bhagwant “Pratik” Karmali had urged the police to look into the death of Shivani Rajawat as a possible murder.
The 19 pages report submitted by Mormugao Deputy Collector Karmali included statements of five persons, Shivani’s brother Shubham Singh Chauhan, her husband Anurag Rajawat, and her in-laws and two persons from the building including the flat owner and a neighbour.
The tragic incident reported at New Vaddem on November 18 was initially attended as a cylinder blast. However photographic evidence (published by O Heraldo) suggested otherwise conspiracy angle to the entire matter.
Thus after O Heraldo’s comprehensive report with photographs and exclusive conversations with the family members of the two women killed, the police were forced to go on the back foot and backtrack on their hurriedly concluded cylinder blast story.