Recently released documentary series by Discovery, ‘Love Kills: Madhumita Shukla Hatyakand’, explores the murder saga of a 24-year-old budding poetess in Uttar Pradesh around two decades ago. The murder wreaked political turmoil with a heavy politician, Amarmani Tripathi, at the centre of the chaos. As per OTT description, “no one could have imagined that the killing would unpack a complex web of lies and power politics.”
Madhumita Shukla was a young poet who had risen to fame for her veer-ras poems and had been the star of many ‘Kavi Sammelans’. She belonged to Lakhimpur Kheri and had started gaining prominence since she was 16-17. She was famous for targeting big political leaders in her poems.
Eastern UP politician Amarmani Tripathi, who was an MLA and a former minister in the SP government, was Madhumita’s alleged lover. She used to live in a two-room apartment in Paper Mill Colony in UP capital Lucknow, where she was shot dead from close range by two people on May 9, 2003. Madhumita was found to be seven-months pregnant at the time of her death.
A political game of power followed, where investigation was transferred between agencies and an investigating IPS officer was suspended leading to uproar.
Post-mortem report revealed that the foetus that Madhumita was carrying matched with Tripathi’s DNA. The politician had initially denied having an affair with the murdered poetess but DNA evidence worked to the contrary. Amarmani Triphati, his wife Madhumani Tripathi, and two other people were sentenced to life imprisonment in the case in 2007.
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