Indian police said they have charged Melbourne maths teacher Sunil Sharma’s brother with murder after alleging the 66-year-old was drugged, hit with a baseball bat and dumped in a canal in north-west India.
The accusation came as officers in Amritsar said they were still searching the Harike canal for Sharma’s body. The case has moved quickly from a missing-person report into a homicide inquiry, with police arresting four people: his brother Satish Sharma, Satish’s wife Anushka, her son Sunish and property dealer Lakshman Singh.
Sharma had been reported missing on May 22, days after leaving Melbourne for India to sell two investment properties. He taught maths at Diamond Valley College in Melbourne’s north-east, and his daughter, Surbhi Sharma, said during the week he vanished that she feared he had met with foul play.
Surbhi said her father had gone to India to sell the properties so he could retire in Melbourne, and that he had arranged a shipping container to move his furniture. She said he had buyers lined up and described him as a man who was intelligent, strong, funny and sensitive. “My dad was always there for us,” she said, adding that he had taught her everything she knew about life.
Police claimed Satish Sharma and Sunish took him from a house, gave him sleeping pills and struck him on the head with a baseball bat, killing him. They said Satish’s wife later arrived and the three tried to destroy evidence, including a bloody mattress and the bat, before dumping the body in the canal. Documents seen by the masthead suggest Satish Sharma confessed to the murder.
The investigation now appears to turn on the canal search and the property trail behind it. Police said the alleged killing may have followed an attempt to steal Sharma’s property, and it is understood the four accused fabricated a power of attorney and sold his two properties, along with a property belonging to his sister. The unanswered question is whether the Harike canal will yield Sharma’s body and the evidence investigators say should still be there.
