The French police have opened an investigation following the discovery of the body of a Mumbai beautician in the Seine river near Paris on April 4. The 31-year-old woman, Sadhana Patel, and her husband Shailesh Patel had allegedly illegally moved to France in 2018 via Russia and Germany, but became estranged after Shailesh allegedly began assaulting her. Sadhana’s family says Shailesh has gone incommunicado, while not much help is coming from diplomats. 

Sadhana’s mother Shalini Labade told mid-day, “They got a visa for Kenya but their agents took them to Russia where they had to face a lot of legal hurdles and were imprisoned for six months. Later they somehow reached Paris via Germany but their vital documents were confiscated by the Russian government… I learnt about these developments only after my daughter Sadhana started to live separately in a charity home in Paris after facing marital disputes in the lockdown.”