For a young woman fighting to establish herself in Bollywood, the greatest danger came not from an indecent proposal or a lost role but in the guise of friendship — a familiar face from the shooting set, the promise of work and an invitation to Uttar Pradesh. But that journey ended in a ransom demand, a headless body and one of the Hindi film world’s most brutal killings.
Exactly 14 years ago, in March 2012, the 26-year-old aspiring actress Meenakshi Thapa went missing. Having come from Dehradun to Mumbai to build a career, she had worked in the psychological thriller “404” and in Madhur Bhandarkar’s “Heroine,” starring Kareena Kapoor. On the “Heroine” set she met two junior artists, Amit Jaiswal and Preeti Surin, who later became her killers. According to case documents, hearing Meenakshi’s family stories on set, the two assumed she came from a very wealthy family; the assumption was wrong, but it was enough to plan her abduction. The accused told Meenakshi they had arranged an acting job for her in Uttar Pradesh; to a young woman seeking a foothold in Bollywood, the offer did not seem a trap, and she set off with them in good faith.
After the journey began, on 17 March 2012 a message came to Meenakshi’s mother’s phone from an unknown number: the abductors demanded a 15-lakh-rupee ransom within three days, threatening that if the money was not paid, Meenakshi would be forced to act in pornography. The family could not raise such a large sum and, borrowing what they could, managed to deposit about 60,000 rupees into Meenakshi’s bank account — but the small amount could not save her. According to the case, before the money arrived, Amit and Preeti strangled Meenakshi and then severed her head from her body. Her dismembered torso was dumped in a septic tank beside Preeti’s family home in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh; the killers then put the severed head in a bag, set off by bus toward Lucknow and threw it from the bus somewhere along the way, and police never recovered it.
Even after the killing, the killers kept contacting Meenakshi’s family for money. Though they tried to erase all evidence, they made one big mistake — keeping Meenakshi’s SIM card, which police used, with call records and electronic technology, to trace their location. On 12 April, police learned that Amit and Preeti were coming to an ATM booth near Bandra station in Mumbai, laid a trap and arrested them; Meenakshi’s SIM card and debit card, which they were using to withdraw money, were found on them. Two days later, on 16 April, police recovered Meenakshi’s headless body from the septic tank in Allahabad.
The case was under trial for six years. On 9 May 2018, a Mumbai sessions court convicted Amit Jaiswal and Preeti Surin under Sections 302 (murder) and 364A (abduction for ransom) of the Indian Penal Code. Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam called the killing a “rarest of rare” crime and sought the death penalty, but the court, after a thorough analysis, sentenced the two to life imprisonment. Meenakshi Thapa had come to fulfil her dream on Mumbai’s silver screen, but a fake promise of work from those she trusted as friends ultimately pushed her to her death.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report