Latest news with #Shaadi
ABC News
09-07-2025
- ABC News
Australian academic allegedly scammed woman out of $645,000, then faked his death
An Australian man accused of duping a woman out of roughly $645,000 in an alleged marriage scam, then faking his death, has been arrested by Indian police. Police will allege Abhishek Shukla, a former university lecturer in Australia, contacted at least 3,194 women on one of India's largest matchmaking sites. It was there he befriended a 40-year-old divorced woman and set about hoodwinking her, police alleged. According to Indian police allegations, Dr Shukla had posed as "Dr Rohit Oberoi", an Australian of Indian origin, to gain the woman's trust and defraud her. The woman, whose identity has been protected for privacy, had received about $900,000 in alimony from her previous marriage. She was looking for a fresh start when she signed up to — one of India's largest matrimonial platforms, where people look for prospective marriage partners. That was where she first crossed paths with Dr Shukla in 2023, police said. Get in touch with Meghna Bali at The woman was planning to start a business related to mindfulness and spirituality programs for school children and shared her ambition of expanding her work internationally. Police will allege Dr Shukla, 44, "took advantage" of this dream by offering to help with funding and overseas contacts. She allegedly transferred around $645,000 to bank accounts in India and Singapore, believing it would help to grow her business. After receiving the funds, police will allege Dr Shukla left for Australia and claimed he had been diagnosed with mouth cancer. Communication dwindled and eventually stopped entirely. In September 2024, the alleged victim received an email from a person calling themselves Vincent Kuan, informing her that Dr Rohit Oberoi had died. Growing suspicious, the woman confided in a friend, who told her to verify the details, police said. She contacted police in November 2024 and an investigation began. When Dr Shukla landed in Mumbai on a flight from Singapore in June, he was arrested and charged with offences including cheating, impersonating others and identity theft. Dr Shukla remains in custody but has not faced court or responded to the allegations yet. Police are investigating whether the alleged fraud was an isolated incident. Dr Abhishek Shukla was born in Lucknow, a city in northern India, and worked in Australia for several years. Police have confirmed he is an Australian citizen. He had most recently lived in Perth and Palmerston, near Darwin, but was also based across Singapore and India at the time of the alleged romance scamming, police said. According to publicly available information, Dr Shukla was a business lecturer at Charles Darwin University (CDU) in Darwin. He holds a doctorate in international business and strategic management from the University of Melbourne. At CDU he coordinated undergraduate programs, chaired research committees, and taught marketing and management courses. He has also published academic work on the internationalisation of small businesses. Beyond academia, Dr Shukla cultivated an eclectic public persona as an innovator, filmmaker and entrepreneur. He has appeared in media stories about "disruptive" technologies, developing and patenting a QR code-based platform to stream movies directly to smartphones and TVs without subscriptions. One of his films, Social Media Murder Society, explored how social media users can expose themselves to strangers who manipulate and harm them. "So often what we are doing when we use social media is exposing ourselves to absolute strangers. We only know them by who they say they are, but they can have extraordinary influence in our lives," he said in a 2018 interview.
The Print
12-06-2025
- Politics
- The Print
Grisly Meghalaya honeymoon horror or Modi govt anniversary? TV news chased Sonam all week
A 'grisly' plot in which a 'bride doomed husband to death' ( NDTV 24×7 ) has 'shaken entire Hindustan' ( Times Now Navbharat) and dominated the news cycle after the 'Killer wife' Sonam ( India Today ) turned up at a roadside dhaba in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh on Monday—approximately 17 days after she and her husband disappeared during their honeymoon in Meghalaya. Husband Raja Raghuvanshi's body was discovered on 2 June. If that murder is a 'Honeymoon Horror' ( CNN-News 18 ) that involves ' Pati, Patni aur Woh' , then all the better. Since then, we have been treated to non-stop details of 'Love, Shaadi, Dhoka' (News 24) that involved 'mastermind' Sonam or her boyfriend Raj (ABP News) and 'supari' killers. So many elements to a diabolical murder plot are just too irresistible – and television news channels didn't resist: They ignored even Prime Minister Narendra Modi's completion of his 11th year in office, to chase after the alleged culprits, criss-crossing from Indore to the East Khasi Hills of Meghalaya and finally, to Ghazipur. TV's favourite murder mystery The television `bahurani ki kahani' has only gotten juicier in the telling with each passing day. The 'Lapata Lady', as Times Now Navbharat chose to call Sonam, became the 'Killer Wife' (India Today) in the matter of a few hours. It unfolded to include Sonam, her husband Raja, and her alleged lover Raj, who was at least five years younger than her—or so Aaj Tak reported. Then there were the two families of the bride and bridegroom, both of whom threw open their homes to TV reporters. One Times Now reporter entered the newlyweds' bedroom where 'I love u' was written in balloons hanging on the wall. 'This is heartbreaking (for Raja's family). The same woman they had embraced as a daughter was a sinister killer,'' declared the Times Now reporter. It was really like a TV soap opera: family members of Sonam, Raja and Raj had the TV microphone thrust at them.—and agreed to speak. Reporters asked Raja's family, 'What punishment do you want for Sonam?'—by Wednesday, his mother and brother were calling for the death penalty. Sonam's father, mother, were interviewed by TV news channels, The father claimed his daughter was 'seedhi-saadhi ladki' (Aaj Tak). Raj's sister was spoken to —in between tears, she said her brother treated Sonam like a 'sister', called her 'Didi' (Zee News). Raja's mother became a barometer of how the story changed right before our eyes. On Monday, she was careful in her choice of words—she praised Sonam for being 'loving' and said the couple was happy. By Wednesday, she was saying that Sonam was capable of doing anything and that she had probably performed 'black magic' on Raja. His murder was part of a 'sacrifice', she suggested. The mother also claimed that Sonam's family was into tantra. (CNN News 18) When Sonam's brother visited Raja's mother on Wednesday, he was attacked with TV microphones and questions—it was a terrible invasion of privacy. 'Was she having an affair?', 'Who planned the murder of Raja?', 'What is Raj's relationship with Sonam?'—the questions went rat-a-tat-tat at him, ceaselessly. 'Broke all ties with her…'' he said, when he could get a word in. By Wednesday afternoon, we were being given a blow-by-blow account of what apparently happened when Raja was murdered. We were told that Sonam was not only present when Raja was murdered but also gave instructions. 'The deviant wife,' as India Today called her, had a Plan B—if the killers failed to murder her husband, she would push him off the cliff. (India TV). Delicacy is for the fainthearted. Our braveheart news channels jumped right into alleged conspiracy: TV news reported an alleged conversation between Sonam and her lover, Raj, 'Let's kill him…'', 'Make me a widow' (Times Now), 'Maar do…(kill him)' (Republic Bharat). And by Wednesday evening, TV anchors were seriously arguing over the `kundalis' of Sonam and Raja (Times Now Navbharat). Also read: TV news is always enthusiastic about a 'war'—India-Pakistan, Putin-Zelenskyy, Kannada-Tamil Tantric angle No detail of the case was too small for TV news. They turned up at Patna airport on Tuesday to watch Sonam being escorted by police on her way to Shillong—and began investigating which airline she was flying (Aaj Tak guessed Indigo) and how long the flight would take (NDTV India). 'It will be a late-night arrival,' said the NDTV India reporter. There were the alleged accounts of 'chats' in which Sonam denied her husband, 'intimacy' until they visited the temple in Meghalaya. We heard lurid details of how Sonam planned the murder before or just after '9 phere', how she contracted the killers—or did Raj contract them? It wasn't at all clear, but that didn't stop TV news from reporting it. There were stories about 'the widow's plan' (Zee News) to marry Raj after a decent interval. Another story was that Sonam's mother knew or was even involved in the murder plot. One of Raja's brothers told NDTV India that it is '100-70 per cent possible that the mother knew.' And then there was the 'tantric' angle. Republic Bharat and News 24 reported that Sonam's family believed in tantrism. Republic spoke to a jyotish, Ajay Dube, who said there was 'mangal dosh' in the horoscopes of Raja and Sonam. He added darkly that there seemed to be another woman involved in the murder. Honeymoon horror It wasn't just television news: 'Raja, Raj aur Sonam' (India TV) made a splash across daily newspapers and their news websites, too. On 10 June, The Times Of India (Delhi edition) led with it on page 1: 'Honeymoon horror: MP bride, lover got her husband killed in Meghalaya' read its main headline. On the same day, Hindustan Times also carried it on page 1, so did The Indian Express and The Hindu—the latter's report identifies Raj Kushwaha as one of the accused but doesn't mention any love angle between Sonam and him. Odd. All of them roughly recited the same sequence of events as did television news, but without the references to a 'killer wife' or 'hate story' (India Today) and other juicy descriptions of the plot and murder. The author tweets @shailajabajpai. Views are personal. (Edited by Ratan Priya)
