Shakereh Khaleeli

 NEXT LEVEL BETRAYAL

Shakereh Khaleeli, was an Indian real estate developer and philanthropist who was murdered by her second husband, Swami Shradhananda (Murali Manohar Mishra) in 1991. She had been previously married to Indian diplomat Akbar Mizra Khaleeli, the Indian envoy to Iran and Australia. They divorced in 1985 and she married Shradhananda the following year.

Shakereh was born on 27 August 1947 in Madras to an India-Persian Muslim family. The family were also residents of Singapore since the early 1900s where Shakereh went to school.In 1965, at age 18, Shakereh married her first cousin Akbar Mirza Khaleeli from Madras. They had four daughters named Zeebundeh Khaleeli, Sabah Bakache, Rehane Yavar Dhala, and Begum Esmath Khaleeli Clark .He had joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1954. He went on to serve in various posts in Delhi, Baghdad, Colombo, Paris and Amman .In 1976 he served as Indian Ambassador to Iran. While her husband was in Iran, Shakereh moved to Bangalore .They divorced in 1984.

Murali Manohar Mishra, who had renamed himself as Swami Shradhananda, first met Shakereh and her husband in Bangalore in 1982. Akbar Mirza Khaleeli then took up a post in Iran and, on his return, Shakereh divorced him. Six months after her divorce, in April 1986, Shakereh "shunned her family and social norms" to marry Shradhananda. She allowed Shradhananda access to her money and property.

In 1991 Sabah, Shakereh's second daughter, found that she was unable to locate her mother. Despite repeated enquiries about Shakereh's whereabouts to Shradhananda, he consistently avoided giving a proper answer. In 1992, Sabah filed for a habeas corpus at the Ashok Nagar Police Station in Bangalore. For three years Shradhananda managed to evade questions from Shakereh's family and friends, as well as legal authorities of the state. He lived lavishly in Bangalore, pretending his wife was on a perpetual holiday.

In May 1994, after sting operation, the police of Karnataka uncovered the skeletal remains of Shakereh's body buried deep in the courtyard of her own house.She had been killed on 28 April 1991. She had been drugged, then placed on a mattress which was deposited in the coffin-like box, already lying in the pit that had been dug in preparation. When Shakereh's skeletal remains were recovered and the mattress was removed, one of her hands was found clutching the mattress which lay below her; this, along with other factors, supported the idea that she had been alive when buried.

Over three years later her body was uncovered. Shradhananda was convicted of the murder in 2005 and sentenced to death.On 22 July 2008 a life sentence was ordered by the Indian Supreme Court in New Delhi.