The television was still playing inside Kritika Chaudhary’s Mumbai apartment. The air conditioner was running. The front door had been locked from the outside.
Kritika had not been seen for days.
By the time her neighbours noticed the smell, the 27-year-old actor was already dead.
A Foul Smell Led Neighbours To Her Flat
It was around 3.45 pm on June 12, 2017, when residents of Shri Bhairavnath SRA Society in Andheri West alerted the police. A foul odour had begun spreading across the fifth floor, apparently coming from flat number 503.
Kritika lived there alone. Her neighbours knew little about her beyond the occasional glimpse of her entering or leaving the building. Now, they could hear a television playing inside her locked home.
Sub-Inspector Shrikant Jadhav and his team entered the apartment and found Kritika’s decomposing body on the bed. She was dressed in a nightgown and had suffered a severe injury to her head.
Near the body was a blood-stained brass knuckle.
A white powder, suspected to be a drug, was also found inside the flat. Kritika’s mobile phone lay near the bed, still receiving calls from the family members who had been trying to reach her.
Kritika’s Family Had Been Trying To Reach Her
Her brother, Deepak Chaudhary, had last spoken to her on June 8. After that, she stopped answering.
Kritika had celebrated her 27th birthday shortly before her death. Four days before her body was discovered, a former friend had sent her a birthday message. There was no reply.
‘Kritika Died From Severe Head Injuries’
The postmortem indicated that Kritika had died from severe head injuries. According to the police investigation, she had been struck three times.
But whoever had killed her appeared to have tried to buy time.
The television and air conditioner had allegedly been left running before the killers walked out and locked the apartment from the outside. Police believed this was meant to delay suspicion and slow the decomposition of the body.
Inside the apartment, investigators found another important clue: a man’s shirt stained with Kritika’s blood.
The shirt would eventually help lead them to two men seen leaving the building around the time of the murder.
Her Personal Life Came Under The Scanner
Kritika had come to Mumbai chasing a familiar dream. Originally from Haridwar, Uttarakhand, she had first moved to Delhi and worked for a cellphone network company. She later married and shifted to Mumbai in 2011.
The marriage did not last.
According to reports, Kritika had met her future husband, Vijay Dwivedi, while working in Delhi and later discovered that he was already married. He reportedly divorced his first wife and married Kritika, but the two eventually separated after she allegedly discovered that he was cheating on her.
Dwivedi was later arrested in an unrelated extortion case. Reports also linked him to alleged financial fraud involving celebrities including Shweta Tiwari and Govinda.
Six months before Kritika’s death, he had reportedly contacted her and asked to revive their relationship. She refused.
Police questioned him on June 23, but the trail soon moved elsewhere.
After her divorce, Kritika had pursued acting and modelling more seriously. She appeared in television shows including Parichay and Savdhaan India, worked in several Balaji productions and played Kangana Ranaut’s sister in the 2013 film Rajjo.
Her personal life, however, had become increasingly troubled.
‘Kritika Attempted Suicide Several Times’
A former friend told The Quint that Kritika struggled with drug addiction and had attempted suicide several times. The friend said Kritika had slash marks on her wrists and had once threatened to jump from the roof of her building while intoxicated.
The friend was outside Mumbai at the time and sent her brother to help. By the time he arrived, a crowd had gathered below and the police had been called. He managed to persuade Kritika to step away from the edge and took her back to her flat.
The incident reportedly disturbed members of the housing society. Kritika later moved to another apartment, and the friendship between the two women eventually ended.
CCTV Footage Changed The Game
As investigators reconstructed Kritika’s final days, CCTV footage from her building offered the first major breakthrough. Two unidentified men had been recorded leaving her apartment around the time she was believed to have been killed.
Her brother also told police that some of her jewellery and valuables appeared to be missing.
Investigators began questioning people and retailers in an attempt to trace the blood-stained shirt found inside the flat. DNA recovered from it was also used during the search.
With the help of informants, police finally tracked the two suspects to Panvel. They were identified as Shakeel Naseem, a Nalasopara resident, and Vasudev, who was from Govandi.
The men had allegedly shifted locations after learning that the police were looking for them, first hiding in Malwani and later moving to Panvel.
Their arrests produced a motive that stunned Kritika’s family.
The Rs 6,000 Debt
Police claimed she had been killed over Rs 6,000.
According to investigators, Naseem was a drug dealer who had supplied drugs to Kritika around a year earlier. She allegedly owed him Rs 6,000 and had repeatedly delayed paying it back.
Naseem had also been arrested in another case involving drug trafficking and car theft. After leaving jail, police said, he needed money and began trying to recover the debt.
Unable to contact Kritika directly, he allegedly obtained her address through acquaintances. When he first visited her, she asked him to return after a few days. When he went back, she reportedly postponed the payment again.
Dinner Turned Into An Argument
On June 8, police said, Naseem returned to Kritika’s apartment with Vasudev.
The visit did not immediately turn violent. According to the investigation, the three spoke and even had dinner together.
Then an argument began.
Police alleged that Naseem attacked Kritika with the brass knuckles he had carried to the apartment, striking her three times on the head. The injuries killed her.
Investigators said Naseem had also brought a change of clothes. When Kritika’s blood stained his shirt, he allegedly removed it and left it behind. The men then switched on the television and air conditioner, locked the door from outside and fled.
Kritika’s Family Questioned The Motive
Yet the Rs 6,000 theory never fully convinced Kritika’s family.
Police had recovered Rs 22,000 in cash from her apartment and handed it over to them. Deepak questioned why his sister would risk her life over a debt she could apparently have paid immediately.
Kritika’s mother and brother travelled to Mumbai to collect her body. Because of its condition, the family cremated her at the Andheri crematorium.
A Promising Career Cut Short
Before her death, Kritika had reportedly secured work as an assistant director on a television serial. Her brother said she had also spoken about making her directorial debut.
She had spent years fighting for small roles in an industry built on improbable breaks.
In the end, the clue that helped expose what allegedly happened to her was not hidden in an audition room or a film set. It was lying inside her locked apartment: a blood-stained shirt left behind by the men police said had killed her over Rs 6,000.
