Killed in Meerut, alive on FB, tale of a woman who eloped with imposter

Ludhiana: For an entire year, family of Ekta, 19, had been thinking that she was as happily married as she looked in her Facebook pictures. However, they had little idea that she had been murdered and her killer was uploading pictures on her social media account to avoid suspicion.
Ekta, a resident of Anand Nagar, Haibowal, was the daughter of Sanjeev Kumar, a driver, and Seema. She was doing BCom from a college in Ghumar Mandi and a part-time job with an event management company when she met a man who introduced himself as Aman.
In June 2019, Ekta eloped with Aman and on reaching his house in Meerut, she found that his real name was Saqib. The duo had a fight, after which Ekta was murdered. The Meerut police had arrested Saqib and his family on June 2.
Speaking with the TOI, Pawan Kumar, Ekta’s maternal uncle from Jamalpur, said, “She was a nice girl who was good in studies and wanted to help her family, for which she started working with an event management company. She was keen on a government job to support her family. In May-end last year, she left the house for her aunt’s place in Himachal and stayed there for a few days. From there, she went to Delhi on June 2, 2019, saying she had to attend an event and would return in two days. When she left her aunt’s house, she also stole some gold jewellery. Thereafter, my sister (Ekta’s mother) realised that gold jewellery was missing from her house too. The penny dropped. We called her up and asked her to return home immediately. But she said she was with Aman and they would marry soon.”
Her mother, Seema, said, “For two-three days, we all tried to convince her to return. Thereafter, she stopped taking our calls. But when we saw her pictures and posts on Facebook, we thought she was happy in her marriage. On her birthday in December, we all wished her on Facebook, but she did not reply. I thought she might still be sore with us. I did not know that she had been murdered until 15 days ago when the Meerut police contacted us.”
Pawan Kumar said according to the Meerut police, on June 6, 2019, Ekta was given sedatives, killed, and her body dumped at an isolated place. “On Tuesday, I was in Meerut. The police said after reaching Meerut, Ekta asked Saqib to marry her, but he refused and killed her. We want quick and strict punishment for the accused,” he added.