Kanda saw Geetika on CCTV, hired her

NEW DELHI: Actor Nupur Mehta’s name got drawn into the Geetika Sharma suicide probe after police found Geetika had accused her of theft, in Goa, three years ago. Geetika was allegedly under pressure from her former employer Gopal Goyal Kanda to withdraw the complaint against Nupur and her co-accused Ankita, who is named in the suicide note. With Delhi Police now planning to question Nupur, TOI spoke to her about Geetika and the complaint she filed on the night of September 20, 2009.
“It was a day before my birthday,” says Nupur, “Ankita wanted to know if Geetika had travelled abroad on a particular date. Although Geetika told her she hadn’t, Ankita wanted to see her passport. She asked me to accompany her to Geetika’s hotel in the Dona Paula area of Goa”.
According to Nupur, Ankita “took away Geetika’s laptop bag from her room, opened it, checked the passport for travel dates, satisfied herself that Geetika had travelled abroad on the date she had asked about, and then told me she would return the bag around 10am. But Geetika went to the Panjim police station at 4.30am and lodged an FIR. We received a call from police and were shocked.”
Nupur says she wanted the case to get over, “as even I had to travel for hearings to Goa. I had even apologized to Geetika. Later, the counsel told us she wanted a formal apology and we gave it to her in writing”. She confirms Kanda had asked Geetika to withdraw the case but says she is not aware of his pressuring her for it. “I don’t know if Mr Goyal harassed her, never in front of me.”
While details about the case tumble out every day, Ankita remains a mystery. Nupur says she was not an MDLR employee but held an important position in Kanda’s Goa casino operations. “Ankita was a professional dancer and she met Mr Goyal at one of his functions in 2005. Later, she claimed she was his wife and her daughter was his child. She told this to Goa Police also”. Regarding the tension between Ankita and Geetika, she says, “Ankita had some personal disputes with Geetika that I am not aware of”. Where did she last meet Ankita? “In Goa, when I was there for the hearing of our case.”
Nupur claims she mentored Geetika in Kanda’s MDLR Airlines. “I was senior vice-president at MDLR when Geetika came to apply for cabin crew. She was 17 and still studying in class XII. I interviewed her and found her suitable for the job. However, as she was underage, I told her to come back after six months. Mr Goyal was watching the interview on CCTV — he generally watched the interviews — and called me to say we should keep her. So Geetika hung around as a trainee and was later appointed as cabin crew. I gave her grooming lessons, taught her makeup and the necessary crew etiquette.” She claims Geetika also served as executive assistant to Kanda in 2009.
What does she remember of Geetika as a person? “She was a nice person, not evil. But she changed a lot in the three years to her posting in Goa. She was a very warm and sweet person when she joined MDLR, but later on her ego surfaced. Instead of ma’am, she started calling me Miss Mehta. I never took it to heart, though.”
Was she surprised when Geetika committed suicide? “She was very strong headed, so I was shocked to hear about her suicide.”
Nupur does not have a high opinion of Kanda’s business empire. “I joined in 2006 but soon wanted to get out as I found the environment very unprofessional. I was shocked when they asked me to interview pilots and engineers. I am not the right person, you know..”
But her harshest words are reserved for MDLR’s HR manager Aruna Chaddha. “She is an evil person and was closest to Mr Goyal in the company. Even she had fights with him, but she was a big figure in the company. She would spend hours with teenaged air hostesses…god knows what she used to teach them.”