There are some stories that get stuck.
And I think this is one of those kinds of cases…
that society will not forget.
Because… on one side was this passion
from a woman…
and another side was this very calculated move at every stage.
It shows that every woman who enters into a relationship…
should be cautious…
because nobody knows…
when people slip.
She really was a larger-than-life character.
When you'd speak to her,
you'd feel that she was not interested in anyone else who was around.
She was just interested in what you were telling her.
You couldn't overlook Shakereh. You just couldn't overlook Shakereh!
She was extremely charming.
She was very fond of vintage cars.
And she had one car called Lagonda.
And she loved picnicking.
She liked going for picnics and…
and meeting people.
A very social person, a very lovable person.
It's really
beyond my thoughts and my thinking
that something so dastardly…
would happen to someone so loving and lovable.
It was only when the news broke…
you know it was such a sensation!
Presumed missing Shakereh Namazie--
Shakereh Namazie, a high profile,
wealthy and beautiful was missing…
Granddaughter of the former Diwan of Mysore,
one of the oldest aristocratic families of Karnataka…
This was extraordinary…
because the family from which she came--
She had everything in her life.
People were shell-shocked.
It was such a massive story
because of the gruesome nature of the crime.
I don't think any of us ever imagined
what would happen, would happen.
My name is… Kodandaramiah.
I was working as an Additional Director General of the Police Administration…
in the DG's office in 1993.
And a few days after I landed there…
I was attending to my work
and then suddenly I heard a woman's voice.
Shouting aloud and abusing the police department
and the officers.
I called the orderly and said, "Who is shouting there?
Call her in. "
Then she came in and straightaway abused me.
"You are all scoundrels.
You are all corrupt.
I came here to shout at you
because I have no faith in the police department.
My mother Shakereh Khaleeli is missing.
And your predecessor…
did not bother to detect the case.
And I don't think you're any better than them. "
She told me.
Then she broke down.
Cried for a long time, wept…
endlessly for some time.
And then she collected her cool,
and then she'd started talking.
Her name was Sabah.
Sabah is a model in Mumbai,
and she is here to find out where her mother was.
And she is not getting any clue about it.
So, I talked to Sabah…
I think this was one scoop which I'm very proud of…
because in the same family, we got two different looks of women.
You know there is one part of them which says be modern
and there's one part of them which says be traditional,
but the confusion is what creates stories like Sabah's mother's story.
She used to talk about her mother,
she was worried, she would drop out of a show,
she had, maybe, a lead or she was going somewhere.
While I was talking to Sabah, there was this pain in her eyes.
And she was vulnerable, she had been hurt.
I apologized. I said, "I know this is not easy for you. "
But she wanted to talk.
My name is Sabah Khaleeli.
My mother's name is Shakereh and her maiden name is Namazie.
I'm her second daughter.
I went to Bangalore in July on a surprise visit…
and found my mother missing from home.
The last time I saw my mother, she was full of love and care for me.
Both of us wanted to rekindle our relationship.
I feel emotionally tensed and my…
my health and my life have not been the same since then.
My mother belonged to the clan of Sir Mirza Ismail.
My name is Abbas Shirazi.
I live in Bangalore, as of now.
And Shakereh, she was like an aunt to me.
A very loving and a very dear aunt.
I'm Rebab Al Khamaini.
My paternal grandfather and Shakereh's maternal grandfather were brothers.
So, we were second cousins.
Mama… your name.
Your name and how you--
-you have to speak loudly. -I am a little hard of hearing.
I am Syeda Mirza.
My husband and Shakereh's mother were cousins.
First cousins.
Shakereh studied in Singapore.
Most of her schooling was there.
She was quite an admirable person.
She had a presence that you couldn't ignore.
We know them as people down the road.
She was the granddaughter of the Diwan of Mysore.
That's a huge position to hold.
He was a revered personality and someone who was integral
in forming several beautiful architectural monuments.
Even roads that are named after her grandparents.
She came from the most prestigious family in Bangalore,
or maybe the country.
And such a beauty queen!
And the daughter of a multi-millionaire.
And it is just that family…
they have inherited
wealth, properties!
This is inherited by Shakereh.
She was 19, I think, when she got married.
Ambassador Khaleeli is a walking encyclopedia.
He's a man of knowledge with contacts, far and wide.
Very influential with the government of India.
He was a very popular personality himself.
He spoke very well, gave several interviews.
He was a television personality himself.
People knew who Akbar Khaleeli was.
It was an amazing wedding.
Describe the wedding.
It was really an atmosphere of so much happiness.
They seemed so comfortable with each other the way they were talking to each other.
I was with Shakereh and Akbar Bhai was in a different room.
And they looked so good together.
During the wedding and even afterwards.
As a bride, she was very happy.
It was really amazing.
That picture of the two of them as a newly married couple,
it just goes around in my head.
From what it looked like, from the outside,
they were a beautiful family.
She had four beautiful daughters. Beautiful daughters!
All of them have something about
-Shakereh. -Shakereh. Yes.
Sabah, the second daughter looks the most like Shakereh.
I thought they were the ideal couple.
I really did.
I never thought…
what would happen, would happen.
Akbar Bhai being in the Foreign Service…
they were posted in so many different countries.
I'm Liveleen Bhagat…
and I'm a homemaker, but I'm much, much more than that.
I think it's very hard for the diplomat's wife.
If I was asked again, "Do you want to be a diplomat's wife?"
No way!
Men go through their rigorous training,
but we come as total novices!
You know, the man comes, he dresses up a certain way.
He gets a briefing from the foreign ministry or whatever.
They do External (Affairs) Ministry.
They go into an office!
But for a woman, it is setting up a whole house.
And then you dress up beautifully. You have to be very well turned out.
And if the list is given of 20 guests or 30 guests or whatever it is…
you cook a wholesome, good Indian meal.
It is very constricting.
And of course, we had to follow the line.
I found them to be, like, very different.
Because Mr. Khaleeli was always so proper in his
sherwani and his kaali topi.
And here was this person who is trying to establish herself as something.
I didn't see much of them together.
Then I think mostly Akbar was posted in Iran or--
He was in Iran, right?
-He was in Iran. -He was the ambassador there!
So, a lot of the time he was away.
But she always had a lot of company around her and…
laughter and…
So, we didn't know if she had been…
you know, lonely and…
desperate.
I think…
the rot probably set in after she met…
Mr. Shraddhananda.
He came into our lives in 1983.
My parents and I visited the house of Begum of Rampur in Delhi.
It was there I saw him for the first time.
He appeared to me as a person of divine power.
This was an image of a God-man.
He was always nice.
But you know, over nice.
You know, and he…
you know, like, saccharine. Like so sweet you could get diabetes.
He was a very smooth talker.
He said he had many disciples all over India…
and they liked him very much.
You know, I didn't like him as a person.
To me, he didn't look particularly honest or trustworthy.
I don't know. It was just a gut instinct, maybe.
He was asked to come to help my aunt,
take care of her real estate problems and other problems as well.
And that was the mistake what, I guess, we made
by calling him here in the first place.
My father was working abroad as the Union of India ambassador to Iran.
My mother, me and my sisters arrived in Bangalore.
We stayed in our father's house at Sankey Road.
A few days later,
Swami Shraddhananda visited Bangalore.
He visited our home,
and on several days he would stay back.
He came across as a soft person who…
who was always eager to help in matters related to our household.
And then he was sort of taking care of the estate in Bangalore, and…
always running errands for her.
Whenever he came to Bangalore, he started staying in our house.
My mother insisted on him staying at our place.
It was as if…
as if he was a family member.
See it's like this,
you know, make hay while the sun shines, right?
And the sun was shining on the Swami, Murli Manohar Mishra.
He made the most of the opportunity that the husband wasn't around,
and, you know, he gained his mileage.
He started plaguing my mother's mind by appreciating her beauty and…
criticizing my father for being away from all of us.
Ambassador Khaleeli…
being a diplomat and living in Iran, at the time
and not having any control on what is happening in Bangalore…
that relationship become a bit strained, and things did not match.
They clashed.
Till he came in our lives we were a happy family.
My father was transferred abroad and my mother was here.
So, he played on that. That she was alone.
Then he got them divorced. They were such an amazing couple.
Being the wife of a successful, charismatic, well-admired person,
maybe lack of an identity which she felt…
She might have thought, "Why am I not doing something with my own life?"
So she walked out of that marriage.
She never went back.
I'm sure that if I had spent some time with her alone,
maybe… I don't know if she was happy, she was unhappy.
For me, it was-- She looked okay.
When my mother annulled her marriage with my father,
my father was the Ambassador of India in Italy.
We moved to Italy and joined our father there.
This was in 1985.
The daughters were-- They were all devastated.
The whole family was devastated…
at what had transpired.
It was something nobody ever fathomed would ever happen.
I don't know what her parents thought, but…
other people just…
They were shocked and surprised,
but what could they do?
It's a big leap for women.
You immediately become the powerless…
non-person.
It was a stigma and families would worry.
If you were a divorcee…
you were considered fair game by most of the men,
especially in social circles.
One child after another is not a joke.
You know you don't have time to breathe.
Her husband was traveling a lot, for his reasons related to his job.
It must have been hard for her to bring up her daughters all by herself.
I personally feel that somewhere she also…
rebelled.
She was looking to now take control of her life.
I just… I just couldn't get my head around…
How could she do this?
What did she see in him?
My mother, within six months of her divorce,
married Swami Shraddhananda.
Horrified. Horrified, really!
That this was the person she had…
left Akbar for.
A lady of her stature is no match to this guy.
Looks wise, they're not compatible.
Emotions wise, thinking wise, not compatible.
She was very honest and a very straight person.
This guy was just the opposite of her.
In terms of emotions, in terms of sentiments, in terms of character.
And after she married him…
the Shia community in Bangalore did not believe what happened!
The whole of Richmond Town was in total shock.
That's the one thing the family could not come to terms with.
If you look at it through that prism of love,
then you would say that she did what she wanted to do.
She went out of family norms, defied the family's decision,
and married a man outside the religion.
If a woman from the Muslim community would want to marry outside the community,
it's still considered a taboo.
Especially if you're a practicing Muslim.
I don't think any parents would have accepted it.
She was not permitted to meet the family or speak to the family.
It was a very shameful thing to talk about.
She was boycotted by everyone. She was not allowed.
Nobody wanted her around.
What's wrong with her? Why is she doing this?
My mother and Swami Shraddhananda
started living together as husband and wife…
in the Richmond Road house.
Richmond town is known as the heart of Bangalore city.
And the entire stretch is dominated by the Shia community.
The black gate there?
It's… it's extremely hard to enter.
There's no way that you can venture in.
And it's been left vacant for…
for years.
Decades, in fact.
This house around the neighborhood, it could be haunted.
We know that there was something so cruel that happened down the road.
Because this is a Shia-dominated community,
it's all the more painful for the community itself to know
that this had happened right there to one of their own.
The road is in that direction.
You cannot do that. Don't shoot here.
It's in litigation.
There are huge walls around it. So, you can't see into it.
She was on Richmond Road, in that small little house.
She just didn't come out in public.
She wouldn't be seen by people, but we all knew that she was living there.
Everyone thought that, you know he had done something to her.
Mesmerized her or got her into a trance or…
I don't know what he did to her. Probably black magic or something.
To convince the lady of her stature to marry a man like him.
My name is Sanjay Hegde.
I'm a lawyer in the Supreme Court.
I handled this case for the prosecution.
Leaving the father of four of your daughters,
and going off with another man.
I suppose there were many moral judgments which were being made.
I don't think the rest of the family…
acknowledged her or kept up with her.
Despite the family having cut off all ties with the mother,
Sabah kept up with the mother.
In 1990, my sisters, along with me returned back to India from Italy.
During that time,
my mother used to speak to me almost every day over the phone.
The both of us were constantly in touch.
My mother advised me to continue my studies in London.
She repeatedly asked me to leave my modeling career.
I think that relationship was always alive.
It's just that it was Shakereh who had kind of…
switched it off because she was involved in other things.
And Sabah-- I mean, who wouldn't want to be back in your mother's fold again?
And as I said, Sabah is a gentle person,
she must have missed her mother.
My mother told me that she has to settle some of her issues in Bangalore…
and I must be ready to move to London at short notice.
Shakereh assured her daughter
that she would arrange for them to go off to live in London.
I was walking down near my house at Leonard Lane,
corner, near Koshy's Bakery,
and Auntie Shakereh happened to go in her old, antique car.
She called out to me.
She stopped her car near Koshy's Bakery.
And then she told me,
"I want to talk to you. Please come and see me.
It's very, very urgent and it's very serious. "
She was crying.
She had tears in her eyes. She started crying.
So I said, "Auntie, don't cry. I will come and see you at the earliest. "
I went up to her house to meet her because she called me.
And then Swami comes out and tells me,
"Why are you here? By whose permission did you come inside?"
I said, "Is my aunt around?"
"No, she's gone to London. She's not in Bangalore.
She's not here anymore.
And next time you come here, ask the watchman for permission.
If I give permission, then come inside.
Don't just walk inside the house!"
She doesn't make an appearance.
That's when the whole graph starts changing.
She used to call me two-three times a day.
And suddenly one day no calls!
So I called up…
Mr. Shraddhananda, Swamiji, as I used to call him,
and I refuse to call him now…
was around.
And he was, you know, saying, "Yes, yes, your mother has missed you.
You must come back. "
I'm CV Nagesh,
appointed as the Special Public Prosecutor to conduct this case.
As and when…
she calls Shraddhananda…
on the landline from Mumbai…
"I would like to talk to my mother, please put her on phone. "
He would give evasive answers.
Four to five days after her phone calls stopped,
I called her up.
Instead of my mother, Swami Shraddhananda took the call.
He told me that my mother had gone to Hyderabad for a relative's wedding.
Again, I phoned her Bangalore residence.
This time, he told me that she had gone ahead
to attend a wedding of a very big diamond merchant in Kutch.
The next time I called, my mother was facing some income tax problem…
because of which she was feeling really low and was in no condition to speak.
In this fashion, he goes on giving
evasive answers or evasive replies.
She could not withstand this trick anymore!
What she did was,
she would come all the way from Mumbai to Bengaluru.
I went to my mother's Richmond Road house.
But my mother could not be found anywhere.
She would question him whenever she met him.
"Where is my mother? I want to see my mother. "
Here is a girl who would have been going through hell
because, you know, you chafe at the bit.
You want someone to do something.
When she comes home, he would say,
"I was not interested in telling you all these details on the phone…
because…
after several years, you see,
she became pregnant. "
She knew of her mother's blind craving for a male child.
I really thought maybe she is pregnant.
Maybe she really-- Because we are four girls, you know?
So, I really presumed that maybe she wanted to have a son.
She had four beautiful daughters. Beautiful daughters!
And she did want a boy.
And that's not unfounded for an Indian woman.
Our society is such.
You know, everybody has this complex.
I mean, 90% of Indian women
must be carrying this complex that I want a son.
She did want to have a son. It…
it was a sort of…
I don't know.
Was it an obsession?
Yeah, Mama?
Was it an obsession?
Yeah, I think she did want to have a…
-She did want to have a son. -son.
Basically, you know…
the rumor was-- The thing was that people are talking about it all the time…
that he had promised her a male child, you know, if she married him.
Sabah managed to contact the Roosevelt Hospital in America
where her mother was supposed to be.
He gave me the name of a New York hospital,
Roosevelt or something like that.
When I tried that hospital…
she was not there.
I said, "Swamiji, you told me this hospital--"
Roosevelt or something like that. I said, "How come she's not there?"
So then he was like,
"Oh, I was just playing the fool because, you know, I knew you try and contact her,
and the rest is so crucial that I didn't want to tell you where she is.
She's in London. She's perfectly fine. "
Then I started seeing his behavior was a little fishy.
"Alright. I would like to talk to her in the hospital.
Come on, call her.
Give the number. "
He'd dial some number…
and he'd say, "Hello, hello?
Shakereh? Hello? One minute. Sabah is here.
Hello? Hello? One minute. Sabah is here.
Come on, talk to her. "
He himself would disconnect the line.
He would say, "No, today she has gone to her friend's house.
She has gone to this club. She has gone to that club.
She has gone to this place and that place. "
Or in New York.
Or in Delhi.
She might not have got a connecting flight.
Alright, as soon as she comes back, I'll ask her to call you. "
"Today, she has said that she is landing in Bangalore with a male child. "
Nobody came. What happened?
"No, I don't know. She probably must have missed the aircraft. "
In this fashion,
he goes on giving evasive answers or evasive replies.
The Swami was telling her, "No, don't interfere.
Suppose something happens to her or her baby,
you might end up blaming yourself. "
The dilemma that Sabah was facing, to believe or not to believe.
There's no reason to disbelieve
because then you are opening up a Pandora's box.
And your mother has believed him, trusted him, married him.
And to be after a man whom you have known
as your mother's husband!
Sabah chose not to believe, and refused to give up the search.
"I will find her", she said.
And she relentlessly kept trying.
And then, accidentally, Sabah found that the passport…
was still in the house.
That's when she knew that her mother had not gone to the US.
After nine months, I said, "That's it, I'm going to the cop station. "
My name is Imran Qureshi.
My focus was with crime stories for a number of years.
It was much later that Sabah realized that she has not been in touch with her at all.
And then subsequently,
she went and filed a police complaint…
saying that her mother is missing…
and that she suspected…
Shraddhananda Swami.
It didn't strike me that my mother was missing.
It was a very gradual process.
We just didn't know what had happened to her.
And the girls, they must have knocked on every possible door
trying to find out what had happened.
Suppose she had not screamed or shouted at me that day,
I would have not bothered to know about this case at all.
It happens.
When I spoke with Sabah Khaleeli on the phone…
the whole story unraveled.
It's unbelievable. I get goosebumps even while narrating it.
I can't believe that someone could actually do this.
When this story was first reported, it was called…
"Dancing On The Grave. "