Bihar woman found alive 12 years after ‘murder’ put husband in jail

For more than a decade, Shakuntala Devi was believed to be dead.

Her husband spent time in jail. His family faced a murder case. Their ancestral land was sold to settle the dispute. And a body recovered from a canal in Bihar's Rohtas district was entered into the case as that of Shakuntala.

Now, 12 years later, police say the woman at the centre of the case has been found alive — living under another name in neighbouring Jharkhand.

The discovery has turned what was once treated as a murder case into a mystery involving a possibly misidentified body, a family that believed its daughter was dead and allegations that Shakuntala herself may have been involved in fraud and criminal conspiracy.

The case dates back to 2014, when Shakuntala's brother was called by police to identify the body of a woman recovered from a canal. Shakuntala had been missing for several days, and her brother identified the body as that of his sister.

Before her disappearance, Shakuntala had reportedly told her family that she was being harassed by her in-laws over dowry demands.

A post-mortem examination was conducted and a criminal case was registered on her brother's complaint. What began as a dowry-related case against her husband, Arun Mehta, and his family soon escalated into a murder investigation.

Arun, his father Dilip and his brother Govind Kumar were among those arrested.

“Arun spent time in jail and later obtained bail, while the proceedings continued,” said their counsel, advocate Shahnawaz Ahmed.

The family maintained that the case had caused them years of hardship.

According to Ahmed, the dispute was eventually settled through a compromise. He claimed Shakuntala's family sought Rs 8 lakh, forcing Dilip Mehta to sell about three-and-a-half kattha of ancestral land to raise the money.

For years after that, the family lived with the belief that Shakuntala was dead.

Then, about two months ago, that belief was shaken.

Dilip Mehta reportedly learnt that his daughter-in-law had been seen in a village in Jharkhand.

“Dilip and some others went there. They recognised the woman,” Ahmed said. “But they were too scared to say anything to her at the time.”

The family subsequently approached Rohtas Superintendent of Police Raj, who ordered an inquiry after the information was brought to his notice.

Police traced the woman to Labhari village in Garhwa district, under Kandi police station.

According to police, she had been living there as Kanti Devi and was residing with a man identified as Rattu Singh.

She was brought back to Rohtas and produced before a court in Sasaram.

The development has now raised a series of questions over the events of 2014.

Shakuntala had married Arun Mehta in 2002. Ahmed said there had been repeated disputes at the marital home and that she left the house in 2014 without informing her family.

“On August 20 that year, her brother approached the police to report her missing,” Ahmed said.

The initial case invoked Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.

Two days later, the body of an unidentified woman was recovered from a canal near Khanda village under Dehri Muffasil police station.

Shakuntala's brother and a local chowkidar reportedly identified the body as hers. It was sent for post-mortem and the report was subsequently placed before the court.

Murder-related provisions were later added to the case based on the brother's statement following the recovery of the body, Ahmed said.

The case then took its course against Arun and his family, with arrests, jail time and years of legal proceedings.

But the latest discovery has forced investigators to go back to the beginning.

“The case is now being investigated from scratch. We are trying to establish whose body was recovered earlier and how it came to be identified as Shakuntala's,” a police officer said.

“After a proper investigation, we will take appropriate legal action against anyone found to have been involved in any wrongdoing,” the officer added.

Police have also initiated proceedings against Shakuntala, alleging that she falsely implicated her in-laws and was involved in fraud and criminal conspiracy.

For investigators, however, one question towers over the rest: if the woman found in the canal was not Shakuntala, then who was she?

And why did Shakuntala's brother identify the body as that of his sister?

After 12 years, a case once thought to have ended with a death has opened again — this time with the woman presumed dead at its centre.