On Monday morning, at Kaushambi metro station on the other side of NCR, a 32-year-old man jumped to death from the platform to the road below.His ID had an Agra address. Police in Ghaziabad found he had been living with his family in Gurgaon.
That’s when the dots connected. The man at the metro station was Gaurav Sharma, the main suspect in Laxmi’s murder. He was her husband.
At DLF-3 police station in Gurgaon, the call about the wailing chuid landed around 1am on Monday.
“The guard and the neighbours suspected something was wrong as no one would answer the door despite knocking several times,” said Mayank Gupta, DCP East, Gurgaon.
The police team sent to the spot saw that the main door of the first-floor apartment was locked. From the balcony, they saw the woman’s body and her 2-year-old son crying next to her. With no direct passage, cops had to remove the AC to wriggle into the single room apartment and rescue the toddler.
“The scene was gruesome. Blood was splattered across the room. It was also in other areas and the kitchen. The child was next to the body, howling and crying. After entering, we covered the body with a bed sheet. We also spotted injuries on the woman’s head,” said Rajat Kumar, assistant sub-inspector at the DLF-3 police station.
Investigators suspect the woman was killed around 12 to 15 hours before they found the body. Police registered an FIR under IPC section 302 (murder) and sent the toddler, who also had head injuries, to the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi for treatment.
While Laxmi’s body was sent for a post-mortem examination, cops spoke to her family in Agra and found that her husband Gaurav had recently lost his job at a valuation company in the city. Gaurav was absconding and his mobile phone was switched off.
“Laxmi’s parents told us that the couple got married three years back. There was a history of domestic violence. We also suspect Gaurav was disturbed because of the financial crunch after he was kicked out of his job that paid him Rs 9.6 lakh annually. We are yet to confirm all the angles,” the DCP said.
Hours later, Gurgaon police got to know about Gaurav’s whereabouts after Ghaziabad cops called them to inquire about the suicide.
In Ghaziabad, Gaurav stepped out of the train at Kaushambi metro station at 10.40am, DCP (trans-Hindon) Shubham Patel told TOI. CCTV footage from platform 1 of the station showed that he was wearing a red jacket, jeans and a black cap. At 10.42am, he aborted an attempt to jump off the elevated platform to the road below – he stood on one of the benches and later stepped down.
Over the next two minutes, the footage shows Gaurav standing leaning on the platform railing, looking at the traffic below. At 10.44am, he took his spectacles off and stuffed them into a pocket, standing over the bench before taking the fatal leap.
Commuters on the busy road alerted cops, who later identified Gaurav from his ID card. They called his family members before informing Gurgaon cops, who also told them about Laxmi’s murder.
Gaurav’s uncle in Agra Prem Shankar Sharma said on Monday that the family was shocked to find out about the murder and the suicide. “Gaurav was facing some financial problems after he lost his job. He had shifted from Noida to Gurgaon for the job, and the company had sacked him,” the uncle said over a call.
According to Prem, the couple’s child was discharged from the hospital and is being taken care of by Gaurav’s family.
Gurgaon police are waiting for Laxmi’s autopsy report, and they have handed over her body to her family.