Pune love triangle ends with life imprisonment for two

PUNE: A Pune court on Thursday sentenced two management students to life imprisonment for killing their classmate by poisoning him in April last year, in what seemed to be a classic love triangle gone horribly wrong.

Additional Sessions Judge S.S. Phansalkar Joshi sentenced Aditi Basu Deo Sharma from Jammu and her boyfriend Praveen Khandelwal to imprisonment for life for murdering Udit Bharati on April 22 by giving him 'prasad' mixed with poison.

All three were 25 and students of the IIHM MBA institute in Pune's Wakad locality.

The judge, who passed the verdict on Wednesday, held Aditi and Praveen guilty of murder and criminal conspiracy. They were also fined Rs.10,000.

The story of changing equations and unrequited love started when Aditi and Udit came to Pune from Jammu where they had studied together in an engineering college. They planned to get married after finishing their MBA degree, but fate had other things in store.

At the MBA institute, Aditi met Praveen and fell in love with him. She wanted to end her relationship with Udit, but he would have nothing of it.

"Aditi and Praveen found a job in Gurgaon but Udit continued to pester Aditi. So both Aditi and Praveen connived to eliminate Udit. On April 22, she came to a Pune lodge and called Udit. When Udit arrived, she offered him prasad mixed with arsenic," said additional public prosecutor Neelima Vartak.

Udit went back to his apartment after eating the prasad and was later taken to hospital where he died.

Police sources said the two had pleaded guilty of murdering Udit at the MacDonald Hotel near the Chinchwad station.

The police had initially registered a case of accidental death only to discover later the presence of arsenic in his body. Remains of the poison were also found in Aditi's bag.

Aditi's lawyer Vijayrao Mohite argued that the case was that of suicide and not homicide. He said Udit had refused to consume the prasad and that he was mentally unstable after their break-up.