Death of pet dog unearths owner's mysterious murder in Bikaner

BIKANER: Pets are humans' best friends, and they can also sniff out dark secrets as one of them did in a murder case here.
The mysterious death of a pet dog Ziggy (Saint Bernard) led to the first suspicion about her owner Monalisa Chaudhary's death, which the police have now established to be a murder.
Bikaner police on Friday arrested her paramour Bhawani Singh Shekhawat and five others after cracking the sensational murder mystery of Monalisa, who suspiciously disappeared two years ago. Whenever her family asked Shekhawat about Monalisa's whereabouts, he used to tell them that she was hiding as the Punjab police had issued a warrant to arrest her in a payment default case.
Swapan Chaudhury, father of deceased Monalisa, had filed a police complaint accusing Shekhawat of luring his daughter with false promises, marrying her posing as an unmarried man and ultimately killing her to usurp her invaluable land on the Jaipur road in Bikaner.
Additional SP Amit Kumar Budania, who unearthed the murder mystery, told TOI that the accused killed Monalisa and cremated her body with the help of his close aides at Bagru near Jaipur. "After killing Monalisa in his flat at Bagru near Jaipur on February 5, 2021, accused Shekhawat moved to Bikaner to stay with her mother Runa Chaudhary, who was living with Monalisa's pets," said Kumar.
Monalisa had four dogs of different breeds and Ziggy was her favourite one. When Runa fell ill, she expressed the desire to give the dogs to someone else for batter care.
Shekhawat gave them to his friends in Bikaner but kept Ziggy with him and asked his servants to take care of it in his absence. Ziggy got ill due to negligence and the servants called a vet for its treatment but the dog couldn't survive.
After some time when Runa recovered, she asked Shekhawat to bring back the dogs but he could bring just three of them. When Runa repeatedly asked him to bring back Ziggy also, he told her that he had sold the dog to an army officer who was now transferred to some unknown place.
Meanwhile, a beagle (of the three surviving dogs) fell ill and Runa coincidentally called the same vet to examine it. The vet told her how he had failed to save Ziggy. This revelation about Ziggy's death and Shekhawat's lies about it, raised doubts in Runa's mind about Monalisa's death as well. Runa on March 19, 2021 confronted Shekhawat saying, "Haven't you killed Mona the way you killed Ziggy?"
According to police, during the quizzing, Shekhawat confessed having killed Monalisa in February 2021 by suffocating her using a pillow after mixing around two dozen sleeping pills in her milk. Monalisa used to drink milk with a Rasgulla before going to sleep every night.