Long-running alimony case leads to shocking discovery — one of the parties was ‘pushed from train’ 5 years ago

In 2020, the woman, identified as Kiran Kumari, went missing from her parents’ home in Jharkhand’s Bokaro. Her family filed a missing persons report with the police soon after, but an FIR was not registered until a year later and the investigation went nowhere.

On September 8 this year, while hearing her husband Ajay Kumar’s case against alimony payments, the court pulled up the police in Bokaro over inaction regarding the missing person report and asked the CID to investigate the matter.

The CID probe found that she was allegedly pushed from a train by one Satyendra Kumar Singh, with investigators saying that she had gone to meet him on the day she went missing.

Alleging lapses in the original investigation by the police, Kiran’s family claimed that Satyendra had been detained in 2021, but that police let him go two days later.

The disappearance

Kiran Kumari has been missing since she left her parents’ home in Jharkhand’s Bokaro on March 18, 2020, with her bank passbook and Aadhaar card. Her mobile phone was also found to have been switched off since that day.

Her brother, Pankaj Kumar, said, “We believe she was abducted and killed as part of a conspiracy.”

It was during the hearing of the alimony case that the Jharkhand High Court learned that the woman, who is a respondent, has been missing for years.

As the appeal progressed in the court, the Bench repeatedly sought updates from the Bokaro police about efforts to trace Kiran. Orders in April 2024, September 2024, and March 2025 went unanswered, even after reminders and faxed communications.

On August 29, this year, the court directed the Superintendent of Police to appear in person and to ensure that Kiran’s father was also present, “with dignity, in a vehicle other than a police vehicle”. But on September 2, the SP again failed to appear. In an order on September 8, the court said, “This Court is considering the conduct of the SP, Bokaro, to be contemptuous and intends to call upon him for framing of charge.”

Kiran’s marriage to Ajay Kumar in 2005 had collapsed amid allegations of harassment regarding dowry and other issues. In 2015, she left the house where she was living with the husband and filed a case to receive maintenance.

According to Kiran’s brother, she had told the family shortly before her disappearance that Ajay had allegedly threatened her with “consequences” if she did not withdraw the case.

‘Caught and released’

The brother, Pankaj, said that when he reported Kiran’s disappearance to the police in March 2020, the police initially did not file an FIR. The family had alleged that Satyendra was behind her disappearance as part of a larger conspiracy. In June 2021, Satyendra’s location had been traced and police brought him from Hazaribagh to Bokaro for investigation. “He confessed to meeting Kiran, but he did not tell the whole story. He told the police that he met her and that she left her phone with him and went somewhere,” Pankaj claimed.

Within a day or two, he said, the police released the man.

“My mother died this June with the hope that her daughter is alive. My father has now lost hope. And my sister’s child has become an orphan, as there are no parents to look after her. We won’t give up. We will fight for justice and won’t give custody to him (Ajay),” Pankaj said.

Ajay Kumar refused to comment on the case.

ASP (CID) Ajay Aggarwal, the investigating officer in the case, told The Indian Express that the accused has now been arrested and confessed to the crime. “The case dates back to 2020 in the Koderma–Gaya division, when the missing woman, Kiran, had gone to meet a man. It was after she went to meet him that the crime took place. The accused was arrested two days ago and during interrogation confessed to the murder,” the officer said.

The High Court is expected to take up the matter again on September 22.