Vipin Bhati, a 28-year-old man who lives in Kasna of Greater Noida, allegedly set his wife, Nikki Bhati, 28, afire at their home on August 21 due to an altercation over her posting reels on Instagram and wanting to reopen a beauty parlour she used to run, police said on Sunday, after interrogating the accused. He also said that he had “no remorse” for the incident, which led to her death, according to the police. Nikki Bhati, 28. (HT Photo)

Earlier in the day, police were taking Vipin to recover flammable material that he used to set the victim afire, when he tried to give them the slip and was shot in the leg, police said.

“The suspect, Bhati, snatched a police pistol in an attempt to escape. In retaliatory fire, he suffered a bullet injury to his legs and was taken to a nearby hospital for medical treatment,” said Greater Noida additional deputy commissioner of police Sudhir Kumar, adding that late in the evening, Nikki’s mother-in-law, Daya Bhati, 55, was also arrested.

The family members of the deceased woman alleged that Vipin and his family killed Nikki over dowry demands. However, police said that they are investigating the case from all angles, as they were married around eight-and-a-half years ago.

On August 21, Nikki was declared dead at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital after being referred by two private hospitals to Delhi, as she had suffered severe burn injuries after her husband allegedly set her ablaze.

The trigger of the August 21 fight

Police said that on August 21, Nikki was demanding to reopen her beauty parlour, which triggered a fight between her and Vipin.

“Investigation revealed that around 3.30pm, Nikki told Vipin that she and her sister would reopen the parlour. When he refused, Nikki said that no one could stop them from reopening, which Bhati opposed,” Kasna station house officer Dharmendra Shukla said.

“Vipin told her that in their family, posting reels on Instagram and running a parlour were not allowed. The issue turned ugly, and he started assaulting her,” Shukla said.

The sisters were active on their Instagram and YouTube channel, running channels for the parlour under the handle “Makeover by Kannchan.” The Instagram account has 54,500 followers, while Kanchan has 22K followers on her personal account. Nikki, whose account was private, has 1,147 followers. They were actively posting videos and content, and had over 2.9 million views.

In a video on Saturday, Nikki’s sister Kanchan, demanded justice in a video.

Nikki’s brother Rohit Gurjar said, “We were informed by my sister Kanchan Bhati around 5.30pm that she was burned alive by her husband Vipin Bhati following a dowry dispute. Kanchan and her in-laws (Vipin’s parents) rushed her from hospital to hospital, as Vipin fled the spot after the incident.”

“My sisters, Nikki and Kanchan, were married into the same household in Sirsa in December 2016. Nikki married Vipin, while Kanchan married his elder brother, Rohit Bhati. After two years of marriage, the family started demanding dowry, especially luxury cars, as we owned them,” he said.

“In the nine years of marriage, Nikki returned home multiple times due to dowry disputes, but it was later resolved.”

Police said Kanchan was assaulted too, but then spared as she was unwell and had an IV drip.

Rohit Gurjar said, “We invested around ₹8 lakh in our sisters’ beauty parlour around one-and-a-half years ago as Vipin and Rohit are unemployed. The family runs a small grocery shop from their home. My sisters were independently bearing their children’s expenses without asking for money from their husbands. The in-laws were also against their parlour business and damaged the entire parlour in February this year.”

The family said that Nikki and Kanchan were operating the parlour on the third floor of their home in Sirsa.

‘No remorse’

Police said that Vipin said he had no remorse and that disputes between husband and wife were “normal.”

An investigator, requesting anonymity, said, “It was revealed that after torching his wife, the suspect immediately fled his home and went to his relatives’ house. The relationship between husband and wife had soured to its peak in the fortnight leading up to the incident.”

“He revealed that he was strongly against the parlour business.”

On Sunday, multiple screenshots of Vipin’s social media account went viral. In one of the posts, he mentioned “nothing left” while posting his photo with Nikki. In another post, he stated that “people are calling him a murderer.”

Incident recorded on camera

Multiple videos from August 21 were widely circulated on social media platforms on Sunday. In one of the videos, a man was seen pouring a liquid (thinner used in parlour) on Nikki while she sat on the floor. In another, Vipin was seen assaulting her brutally. In a third video, Nikki was seen coming down the stairs while engulfed in flames.

The victim’s family said they asked Kanchan to record the video as they sought to collect evidence of years of abuse.

“Nikki’s father-in-law was accompanied by my sister Kanchan when they took her to the hospital in Delhi. But when he came to know that she died, he escaped from the moving van,” Rohit Gurjar said.

Nikki’s family members, including her sister Kanchan—who has thousands of followers on social media—ran a campaign on Sunday under the banner “Justice for Nikki.”

Vicky Payla, another of Nikki’s brothers, said, “A fight also broke out between Nikki and Vipin around a week before the incident. But as always, he apologised in front of elderly people and promised not to pick a fight again. Due to social defamation, we were compromising for the past few years. Now Kanchan, who has two kids, has returned home after the incident.”

A case under Section 103 (murder), Section 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt), and Section 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) was registered at Kasna police station against the victim’s husband Vipin Bhati, father-in-law, Satyaveer Bhati, mother-in-law Daya Bhati and brother-in-law Rohit Bhati. Police said efforts are underway to nab others.