Husband accused of killing Vadodara social worker in Sydney

Wed, Jun 4 02:27 AM

A prominent NGO worker from Vadodara, Jyoti Mehta (37) and her nine-year-old daughter, Ujalla, were found murdered in a park in Sydney, Australia, on Monday. Though a motive for the murder is uncertain, Sydney police have arrested Jyoti's husband, Sanjay Mehta (41), for the crime; he was denied bail when produced in court. Mehta allegedly killed the mother-daughter duo earlier in May and registered a missing persons' complaint with the Sydney police on May 5.

It was through television media reports that Jyoti's father, Bharat Bhusan Sharma found that his daughter was brutally murdered. A tearful Sharma said, "My daughter had shown some dissatisfaction about her marriage while talking to her mother few months ago."

He added that his wife is now on dialysis and she was not informed about the murders because of her failing health. Sharma stated that Jyoti and Mehta, both divorcees with children from their previous marriages, met each other on the Internet and wed in May last year.

According to reports from Sydney, Mehta, after killing his wife and stepdaughter, put their bodies in the boot of his car and took them to a tourist site called Echo Point atop a hill in Sydney early in May. Those close to the victims' family stated that Mehta threw their bodies down a 150-metre cliff. A pair of morning walkers found the two bodies the following day and alerted the police, who immediately arrested Mehta and charged him with murder. Apparently, Jyoti had earlier complained to a domestic violence social worker about Mehta verbally abusing her, which her sister Poonam Sharma, who lives and works in Sydney, also confirmed to the police.

A social worker, Jyoti, born and brought up in Vadodara, worked for the welfare of street children who lived in and around railway stations in Vikas Jyot Trust.

Incidentally, The Indian Express carried a story about Jyoti Mehta and her work with railway street children just a few months before she left Vadodara to get married in Sydney.

Jyoti's marriage to Mehta, her second, was solemnised without her parents' knowledge. "Jyoti was married when she was 37 years, she met Mehta through an Internet marriage site. Since my younger daughter is also in Sydney, she went there and married him a year ago. The marriage occurred in my and her mother's absence, though we were not annoyed by it," said Jyoti's father.

According to Jyoti's friends, she was not happy in her married life.