‘Aaj phone nahi kiya, sab theek thak hai beta’ (You didn’t call today, is everything okay?) — Harshita Brella’s 55-year-old father Sabir Brella breaks into tears as he looks at his last message to his daughter. The body of 24-year-old Harshita was recovered from the boot of a car in east London on November 14. The car, which belongs to her husband Pankaj Lamba, was parked in Brisbane Road, Ilford.
The Brella family has claimed that it was a planned murder as Pankaj managed to flee to India just a day after brutally killing the woman.
Harshita’s maternal uncle Sandeep Ahlawat said they tried to approach the UK Embassy in Delhi to seek their help in the case, but they were not allowed to enter the premises.
It’s been over 10 days since Harshita’s death, but the family still doesn’t know about any developments in the case, he said.
We don’t know when we would receive her body here in India, Ahlawat said.
Showing photos of Harshita’s childhood to a recent one where she had slap marks on her face, Sabir said, “Pankaj came back to India after killing her. I request Indian agencies and the government to intervene and arrest him.”
UK’s Northamptonshire Police has launched an international manhunt for Pankaj, whom they suspect of murdering his wife earlier this month at her home in Corby before driving her lifeless body to London, some 145 km away from their house, and fleeing the country after abandoning the car.
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Talking about his last WhatsApp message to his daughter, Sabir said she did not reply because she was no more then.
Her elder sister Sonia Dabas told PTI, “We had the last video call with Harshita on November 10 when she told us that she was preparing food for Pankaj who was coming over for dinner.”
“From the next day her phone was not reachable. We had a feeling that Pankaj had killed her by then,” she said.
Sonia said, “My parents are completely broken down since we got the tragic news. We have a hope from our government in India to intervene and get justice for my sister.”
It appears to be a planned murder as Pankaj managed to return to India just a day after killing her.
“We have proof of him coming back to India, which we have told to London police. Here, no one is helping us. We have also approached our local police and filed a complaint of dowry harassment against Pankaj and her parents,” Sonia said.
Pankaj, a resident of Haryana’s Jhajjar and Harshita, of Delhi’s Palam, got married in March this year and moved to London.
“It was an arranged marriage. Pankaj’s uncle, who is in Delhi Police, told us that he works in a private company but later turned out to be a security guard in London,” Sonia said.
She further said that Pankaj and his family used to harass Harshita for dowry.
“Pankaj used to beat her and force her to get money. Due to the regular fights, she started living separately and working in a warehouse. Despite living separately, he would handle her bank accounts.”
“With a hope that some day things will become normal, my daughter kept fulfilling his demand, unknowingly that this would be the end,” her father, Brella said.
The Barella family said they got the information about her death when they got a call from Delhi Police on November 15.
