Husband arrested as detectives probe death initially ruled a suicide
The late Ms Vinitah Nikesh.
Police are investigating the death of a woman in Nairobi, which had initially been ruled a suicide, but is now a suspected murder.
The case has landed officials of a Hindu temple and the detectives who did the initial investigations in hot water as a new homicide team handling the case considers charging the husband of the dead woman with the murder.
Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) George Kinoti has transferred almost the entire Lang’ata DCI team including the boss, Mr Rashid Mohamed, after it emerged that Ms Vinitah Nikesh might not have died by suicide as initially thought.
Vinitah, 27, was found dead hanging partially from a rope tied on a window grill in a house at Swaminarayan Temple Flats in Lang’ata, Nairobi, on April 3. One of her two-month-old twins was found alive on a bed inside the house, while the other was later traced to her mother-in-law, who lives in the same estate.
Her husband, Mr Nikesh Harji Shangani, 32, who is said to have had a fight with her the day before, was allegedly having drinks at the Galleria Mall when Vinita’s body was found. Vinitah came to Kenya from India in 2017.
Mr Shanghani, who is now in police custody as police investigate his wife’s death, told detectives that he left his house at 6am on April 3, following an argument with Vinitah the previous night.
A witness who has also written a statement with the police told detectives that he was not aware that Mr Shanghani had left that morning, but that there was commotion in the couple’s house the previous night.
On the morning before Vinitah was found dead, she allegedly gave out two of her children -- a two-month-old baby to her mother-in-law, and a four-year-old boy to a neighbour -- and remained with one baby in the house.
A few hours after handing over her children, Vinitah was dead. Initial responders from the Lang’ata Police Station declared her death a suicide, and the body was cremated the next day. The case was declared closed.
However, her relatives were not buying the story, because they were aware that Vinitah was being mistreated by her in-laws, and she had complained about it a number of times.
“We have come to understand that the deceased was being mentally tortured at her in-laws’ house at Lang’ata, Nairobi, for so many days, which compelled her to take such drastic steps, resulting in her untimely death,” Jai Swaminarayan, a representative of the family wrote to the chairman of the Shree Kach Baidaia Leva Patel Community in Kenya.
“We do hereby request your good self to kindly investigate the matter at your level and let us know the exact cause and conspiracy behind the unnatural and pathetic death,” asked the family representative.
With the Lang’ata DCIO office not providing the answers that Vinitah’s family was searching for, the matter was escalated to DCI headquarters on Kiambu road and assigned to the Homicide Department whose first request was for photographs taken at the scene.
The photos, which the Nation has seen, show Vinitah’s body slightly slouched on the window where she was found, with her feet not only touching the ground, but the knees bent. Both of her arms are folded and leaning on the window frame while the rope she allegedly used to hang herself had several knots.
“The woman’s husband, Nikesh Harji Shanghani, was not in the house at the time of the discovery, and the first responders immediately notified police officers based at Lang’ata police station,” said the DCI.
“Preliminary investigations indicated that the woman had taken her own life due to mistreatment by the husband who it was alleged was a drunkard and rarely provided for the family,” said the DCI.
However, while inspecting the house where the body was found, the new set of investigators noticed that the temple nearby had CCTV cameras facing the house at the Swaminarayan Temple flats where the couple lived.
From their location, it was evident that the cameras would have captured any movement into or out of the house. Investigators immediately asked for the CCTV cameras’ hard drives from the temple and took them to their forensic lab for analysis.
To their surprise, all footage in the hard drives was intact but all the recordings made on the day Vinita’s body was discovered had been deleted. The detectives immediately suspected foul play and called the management of the temple for questioning.
They immediately placed Mr Shanghani under arrest. He is now being treated as the chief suspect in his wife’s death.
