TNN

Jun 3: Vadodara: Jyoti Mehta (38), a social worker from Vadodara, who had moved to Australia last year, and her nine-year old daughter Ujalla were murdered by her husband Sanjay Mehta (41). Their bodies were found by bushwalkers near Echo Point in the Blue Mountains on Sunday. Sanjay had filed a missing report on May 5. 

Sanjay allegedly murdered his wife and step-daughter in Dunn Way in the western Sydney suburb of Blacktown, according to the Australian police statement submitted to the Blacktown Local Court on Monday afternoon. He then placed the two bodies in a vehicle and took two other family members for a drive to Echo Point at Katoomba, a popular tourist spot in the Blue Mountains. While Sanjay’s biological son and daughter went for a walk, he allegedly threw the bodies off the cliff. Sanjay was arrested late on Sunday night. 

Police said Jyoti had approached them in January after she was verbally abused and threatened by her husband. She had also told her younger sister, living in north Parramatta, that her relationship with Sanjay was strained. 

Sanjay and Jyoti met on the Internet in July 2006 and married in May 2007. Vijaymala Thitte, a close friend who worked with Jyoti for seven years in Vadodara said, “She was no longer her happy-golucky self when she came to Vadodara in December. She looked disturbed and was contemplating returning to India.’’ 

Jyoti’s mother Nirmala Sharma was admitted to the ICU at the Bhailal Amin Hospital in the city for dialysis and apparently not informed about her death. Her father Bharatbhushan Sharma was at Nirmala’s bedside and could not be contacted. However, he was intimated of the murders.