Ahmedabad: Jeweller murdered over family business dispute; wife, son held

Ahmedabad: A long-running family dispute over a jewellery business turned deadly in Viramgam over the weekend, with police arresting a 42-year-old woman and her son for allegedly killing the family’s patriarch after a violent clash at their home on Saturday.

Investigators say the accused first tried to pass off the death as an accident, claiming the victim had fallen from the stairs. A forensic postmortem, however, found the injuries inconsistent with a fall, prompting police to treat the case as a planned assault.

The deceased, 48-year-old Deepak Radhanpura, ran a jewellery shop near Divya Jyot School in the Tower Bazar area of Viramgam. Police said friction had been building within the household for some time, partly over his younger son, Uday, 22, refusing to help run the business.

The confrontation began on June 6 when Deepak scolded Uday for not assisting him at the shop. According to police, the argument escalated as other family members became involved. Deepak is said to have struck his son with a wooden stick, and Uday allegedly hit back, causing a deep wound to Deepak’s forehead.

When Deepak then allegedly threatened his wife, Divyani, and his son, the two allegedly hit him repeatedly with sticks. Police said Uday subsequently strangled his father.

The case came to light when Viramgam’s Mahatma Gandhi Hospital alerted police on the night of June 6 that a man had been brought in dead. Doctors flagged suspicious wounds, including the injury on his forehead, and the body was sent to Ahmedabad for a forensic examination, which attributed the death to strangulation combined with severe head and body injuries, ruling out an accident.

Acting on those findings and after questioning the family members, Viramgam Town police registered a murder case under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and arrested Divyani and Uday.