Three held in Nagpur flat over Lucknow cafe owner Shiva Sharma's death after e-rickshaw lead

Nagpur Police on Sunday made a major arrest in the case of the death of Lucknow cafe owner Shiva Sharma. Police arrested the main accused, Shraddha Dubey, her sister Rashmi Dubey and their driver Tanveer Ali alias Danish. The three were living in a rented flat on the 11th floor of an apartment building in Chinchbhuvan, on the outskirts of Nagpur. Shraddha was reportedly moving about in a burqa.

The most important link in the arrests was an ordinary e-rickshaw ride. According to police sources, the three reached Nagpur in a rented vehicle with an Uttar Pradesh registration number. On reaching Ganeshpeth, they allegedly abandoned that vehicle and took an e-rickshaw towards Chinchbhuvan. They are alleged to have travelled through several cities to avoid arrest.

Uttar Pradesh Police had information that the suspects were fleeing towards central India, so it sought help from Nagpur Police Commissioner Vishwas Nangare Patil. The commissioner assigned the task to Deepak Agrawal, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch. Agrawal formed three teams under the supervision of senior police inspectors Shubhangi Deshmukh and Nitin Chulpar. The teams followed different leads, combed the suspects' likely routes and worked to trace their movements in the city.

The investigators put together the full route using CCTV footage, internet records, social media tracking and local information. Rather than relying on a single lead, they reportedly pieced together the whole sequence of movements, which finally pointed towards Chinchbhuvan.

To trace the e-rickshaw's route, the Crime Branch went through footage from about 200 CCTV cameras. By matching recordings from different places and tracking the vehicle's movements, the teams gradually reached the rented apartment where the three suspects were allegedly staying. The e-rickshaw, which might have gone unnoticed in the city's everyday traffic, turned out to be the key link in the investigation.

Shraddha is alleged to have stayed in hiding for 10 days and reached Nagpur via Nepal, Agra, Lucknow and Kanpur. Investigators suspect that she used different means of communication to avoid being caught, and wore a burqa to hide her identity while travelling with her sister and the driver. The exact order of their movements, their methods of communication and whether anyone helped them on the journey are yet to be established by police.

After identifying the flat, the Crime Branch did not enter immediately but kept the building under watch. Police reportedly kept up the surveillance until members of the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) arrived, so that the police of the two states could coordinate. A joint team then raided the flat and took the three into custody. The three are expected to be produced in court for transit remand and then taken to Lucknow on Wednesday for further investigation.

The case concerns the death of Shiva Sharma, 27, a Lucknow businessman who ran cafes and restaurants. He died on October 9 after allegedly falling from the fourth floor of the Awadh Green apartments in Lucknow's Hazratganj area. Shiva's mother, Ranjana, accused Shraddha and her associates of murdering her son. She alleged that Shiva was harassed, threatened and beaten. After the complaint, Lucknow Police registered a murder case and began searching for the accused.

Shraddha later released a video declaring herself innocent and claiming that Shiva had died by suicide. Her claim contradicts the murder allegations made by the family of the deceased. Police are investigating the circumstances of the death.

The Nagpur arrests are a major breakthrough in the search, but the next phase of the investigation is only now beginning. Police will piece together the sequence of events before Shiva's death, examine the family's allegations and scrutinise the statements of the three suspects. The biggest question in the Lucknow case remains what happened to Shiva Sharma before he fell from the fourth floor. The responsibility of those arrested, if any, will also be determined in the investigation.