Kanpur murder: Husband was ‘in shock’ as wife sat in jail. Then he was arrested

For nearly three weeks, Shalu’s family believed she had been wrongly accused of her father-in-law Vineet Minocha’s murder. They had publicly demanded a fair investigation and tried repeatedly to speak to her husband, Subrat.

On Thursday, they were stunned to learn that Subrat had been arrested for allegedly plotting the crime. “We always believed Shalu was innocent, but we never expected Subrat could be involved,” said her elder brother, Dheeraj Arora, a businessman who lives in Lucknow.

“We had publicly demanded a fair investigation from the Kanpur police. But today’s revelation has left us shocked — that it was entirely Subrat’s plan,” he said. Vineet, 63, a pharmaceutical businessman, was found dead in his first-floor flat at Ratan Orbit Apartments in Kanpur on September 6.

He had been stabbed 26 times. The two men who allegedly killed him — Vishal Gautam and Raj Kishore — had entered the flat using a duplicate key while Subrat, Shalu and their five-year-old son were at a ‘kitty party’. The day after the murder, police arrested Shalu and the two men.

Vishal, a former employee at Vineet’s pharmacy on Birhana Road, told police that Shalu had allegedly hired him for Rs 6 lakh to kill her father-in-law. Shalu had denied the allegation during questioning. The case took a turn during the police custody remand of the three accused, when investigators confronted Subrat with the others.

After several rounds of questioning and cross-examination, police said Subrat admitted to his role. Police now allege that Subrat had paid the two men to kill Vineet and had instructed them to pin the blame on Shalu if they were caught.

Shalu, 30, is the youngest of three siblings. Her family runs a bakery business in Lucknow. She holds a B.Ed degree. She and Subrat got married in 2020 in an arranged marriage, Dheeraj said. After the wedding, she moved into her in-laws’ flat in Kanpur.

The family had considered it a good match. Vineet was among Kanpur’s leading pharmaceutical businessmen, with a retail and wholesale medicines business, while Subrat worked for his father. Shalu had never told her family about facing any problems at her in-laws’ house.

“There may have been minor issues, as in any family, but she never shared any such concerns with us. She never told us about any dispute between her and her father-in-law,” he said. In the days after Vineet’s murder, Subrat neither met nor spoke to members of Shalu’s family.

“We tried several times to reach him after Shalu’s arrest, but were told by his family that he was unwell, under shock and mentally disturbed,” Dheeraj said. They initially assumed Subrat was avoiding them because he blamed Shalu for his father’s murder.

“He didn’t visit Shalu in jail either,” he claimed. Shalu has been lodged in Kanpur jail since her arrest on September 7. Police have decided to re-verify her role before moving court to have her exonerated.