Police in India say a Victorian school teacher who had been missing for more than a fortnight was murdered. Sunil Sharma, who was based in Melbourne, disappeared last month while he was in India, and authorities now believe he was killed, opening a case that has shaken his family and former school community back in Australia.
Mr Sharma had travelled to Amritsar, a city in the north-western Indian state of Punjab, where he was preparing a property for sale. He went missing around 22 May, and when he could not be reached, his Australia-based family raised the alarm with authorities here while friends did the same in India.
Local police say they have made arrests in the case. They have detained Mr Sharma's brother, along with his sister-in-law and his nephew, announcing the arrests overnight in India. The three are now in custody, though they have been arrested rather than formally charged at this stage.
According to police, the brother is alleged to have murdered Mr Sharma. They further allege that the sister-in-law and nephew assisted with the crime and helped to dispose of evidence, accounts that investigators in India are continuing to pursue.
Mr Sharma's body has not yet been recovered. Police say it was disposed of in a canal and that a major search is now under way to retrieve it, a process the family has been told is ongoing.
In Melbourne, the loss has hit hard. Mr Sharma has two grown children, a son and a daughter, Serbi Sharma. His daughter, who had spoken publicly not long after he first disappeared, was too distraught to speak on camera as the news of his death emerged.
She said the family had lost a good man, describing a person with a good heart who had made an impact on many students over his career. She added that she had been deeply touched by tributes from students at Diamond Valley College, the school where her father worked as a maths teacher.