After a week of immense media speculation including the balderdash theory of ‘Honour Killing,’ a man appeared in the Hamilton Court last week, charged with the murder of his wife.
Twenty-Nine-Year old Davesh Sharma was stated to be cooperating with the New Zealand Police but lost his appeal for name suppression in the case relating to the death of his wife Ranjeeta a week earlier in Waikato.
He will return to the Court tomorrow (February 2) for further hearing.
Ranjeeta’s burning body was found on the side of an isolated road west of Huntly, a small coalmining town, about 35 kms from Hamilton and 95 kms from Auckland on Thursday, January 20.
Sharma left for his native Fiji with their four-year-old son Akash the next day.
There were talks of extradition of the man but he had reportedly spoken to the Fiji Police and the visiting New Zealand Police officials. He returned to New Zealand under police escort on January 27 and was arrested on arrival.
The Police also said that the remains of Ranjeeta were cremated at a funeral held in Nadi on the day Sharma returned to New Zealand.
Child Youth and Family Services Midlands Regional Director Greg Versalko said Akash was being tended by a foster family in Waikato.
“We will work closely with his wider family to explore what will be best for him for his future,” he said in a statement.
Who killed Ranjeeta Sharma?
Who left her burning body on the roadside?
Did anyone hear her screams or did she scream at all?
Where is her car, a Silver Subaru Station Wagon, Registered FSD433
Was she taken by force to Waikato or did she go there willingly?
Why did her husband leave for Fiji the next day?
These were among the questions that were asked during the first two days after the news about the unfortunate broke in the media.
Detective Senior Sergeant Nigel Keall of the Waikato CIB said that initial investigations centred on the movements of the deceased and how she came to be in that area, while she is a resident of South Auckland.
Mr Keall said Sharma was of “considerable significance to the investigation.”
The Indian community was riled at the suggestion that Ranjeeta may have been a victim of ‘Honour Killing.’
A number of meetings organised by community groups were held to condemn any such speculation, stating that such practices do not exist in New Zealand.
There have been two other cases in which women were done to death, but they were serious crimes, and not the so-called, ‘Honour Killing.’
Ahmad Riyaz Khan was sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2004 after a Court found him guilty of murdering 24-year-old Gulshad Banu Hussein. He poured fuel over her and torched her at the forecourt of a petrol station in Otahuhu in South Auckland.
We also reported the case of Laxman Rajamani who bashed his wife Chitralekha Ramakrishnan with a brick and slit her throat. He told the Auckland High Court that his wife was unfaithful. He was sentenced in March 2006 to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum of 12 years in prison. He may be eligible for parole in January 2017.
