Top Indian artist found dead in Mumbai sewer - Telegraph
Top Indian artist found dead in Mumbai sewer - Telegraph
A renowned Indian artist whose works depicted Mumbai’s dark underworld has been found floating dead in a city sewer.
The discovery of the bodies of Hema Upadhyay, 43, and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani, 65, on Saturday evening has sent shockwaves through the city's art scene.
Police said two separate cardboard boxes containing the victims’ bodies had been found in a sewage drain by a street cleaner in Mumbai's Kandivli district late on Saturday.
They were thought to have been strangled to death hours earlier, and were found semi-naked with their limbs bound.
Ms Uphadyay's ex-husband Chintan, 43, who is also a renowned contemporary artist and whose works have been displayed in Britain and around the world, was questioned on Sunday before being released without arrest.
The pair were once seen as the poster couple of the metropolis’s modern art scene.
But their messy divorce hit the headlines in India in 2013 when Ms Upadhyay sued her then-husband for harassment after he painted graphic images of women engaged in sexual acts on the walls of their shared home in Mumbai.
Ms Upadhyay had claimed the drawings were “an insult to women” and had been painted “knowing fully well that the said painting would be seen by his servants, drivers and other persons”, but ultimately lost the lawsuit. Mr Bhambhani had represented Ms Upadhyay in the case.
On Monday, police in Uttar Pradesh detained key suspect Sadhu Rajbhar, who is said to have have called Ms Upadhyay on the night before her death offering to provide evidence against her estranged ex-husband in their ongoing legal battle.
At least three others were being questioned in Mumbai on Monday after a driver who had transported the boxes containing the bodies to Kandivli - believing them at the time to contain “broken antiques” - contacted police.
Ms Upadhyay, who was born in Gujarat but moved to Mumbai a decade ago, created award-winning paintings and sculptures of migrant life in Mumbai that were shown in galleries in China, Australia, France, Israel, Italy and the US.
Fellow artist Jitish Kallat, who was among the first to arrive at the Kandivali police station on Sunday, said: “Her death is truly devastating … a chilling end to a life spent in artistic pursuit.”
Top Indian artist found dead in Mumbai sewer - Telegraph
A renowned Indian artist whose works depicted Mumbai’s dark underworld has been found floating dead in a city sewer.
The discovery of the bodies of Hema Upadhyay, 43, and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani, 65, on Saturday evening has sent shockwaves through the city's art scene.
Police said two separate cardboard boxes containing the victims’ bodies had been found in a sewage drain by a street cleaner in Mumbai's Kandivli district late on Saturday.
They were thought to have been strangled to death hours earlier, and were found semi-naked with their limbs bound.
Ms Uphadyay's ex-husband Chintan, 43, who is also a renowned contemporary artist and whose works have been displayed in Britain and around the world, was questioned on Sunday before being released without arrest.
The pair were once seen as the poster couple of the metropolis’s modern art scene.
But their messy divorce hit the headlines in India in 2013 when Ms Upadhyay sued her then-husband for harassment after he painted graphic images of women engaged in sexual acts on the walls of their shared home in Mumbai.
Ms Upadhyay had claimed the drawings were “an insult to women” and had been painted “knowing fully well that the said painting would be seen by his servants, drivers and other persons”, but ultimately lost the lawsuit. Mr Bhambhani had represented Ms Upadhyay in the case.
On Monday, police in Uttar Pradesh detained key suspect Sadhu Rajbhar, who is said to have have called Ms Upadhyay on the night before her death offering to provide evidence against her estranged ex-husband in their ongoing legal battle.
At least three others were being questioned in Mumbai on Monday after a driver who had transported the boxes containing the bodies to Kandivli - believing them at the time to contain “broken antiques” - contacted police.
Ms Upadhyay, who was born in Gujarat but moved to Mumbai a decade ago, created award-winning paintings and sculptures of migrant life in Mumbai that were shown in galleries in China, Australia, France, Israel, Italy and the US.
Fellow artist Jitish Kallat, who was among the first to arrive at the Kandivali police station on Sunday, said: “Her death is truly devastating … a chilling end to a life spent in artistic pursuit.”
