Does the Mahajan-Munde family suffer from a jinxIJ Or how else one can explain a shocking crime, three untimely deaths, a drug abuse case, a related death, and two failed marriages in the family all in a span of eight yearsIJ
In what came as a bolt from the blue, senior BJP leader Pramod Mahajan’s youngest brother Pravin Mahajan shattered peace in the Mahajan-Munde household on April 22, 2006 morning, when he shot him from point-blank range.
Forty-five-year-old Pravin had driven all the way from his Thane residence to his elder brother Pramod’s flat in Poorna building at Worli in south-central Mumbai on that ill-fated morning. After some arguments, an enraged Pravin pumped three bullets into elder brother’s lower chest and abdomen.
His brother-in-law Gopinath Munde, who used to live on the upper floor of the same building, rushed a profusely bleeding Pramod Mahajan to Hinduja Hospital. While he was being taken to the hospital in his son-in-law Anand Rao’s car, a stunned Pramod asked those accompanying him in Marathi: “Mi asa kay gunha kela ki Pravin ni majhyavar golya zadly” (What crime have I committed that Pravin fired at meIJ) — the statement the trial court later accepted as the slain BJP leader’s dying declaration. Pramod Mahajan succumbed to injuries on May 3, 2006.
Even before the family could recover from Sr Mahajan’s shocking death, another untoward incident befell the family, when on the morning of June 2, 2006 slain BJP leader’s son Rahul Mahajan and personal secretary Bibek Maitra were rushed to Apollo Hospital in New Delhi after a late night drinking binge that reportedly included cocaine. While Maitra died of a suspected drug overdose, Rahul battled for life and recovered several days later.
After a brief spell of peace, Rahul Mahajan got engaged to his childhood friend Shweta Singh, a Jet Airways pilot, in July 2006. The Delhi Police chargesheeted Rahul Mahajan and five others on August 4 on charges of possession of drugs, financing illicit drug trafficking, harbouring offenders and criminal conspiracy under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. The chargesheet said that one Sahil Zaroo had procured the drug at the instance of Rahul Mahajan, who along with Maitra, consumed it at late Mahajan’s official residence at 7, Safdarjung Road.
The drug case did not come in the way of Rahul tying the knot with Shewta at Mahajans’ Worli residence in Mumbai on August 29, 2006. However, the marriage formally ended in 2008, after Sheweta made allegations of mental and physical abuse against him.
After a brief first marriage, a failed pilot Rahul — while trying to make a career in television — fell hook, line and sinker for one of the 15 Swayamwar contestants, Dimpy, a Kolkata girl, whom he married in 2010. Even Rahul’s second marriage has run into trouble for reasons similar to the first one, with the couple having recently applied for divorce.
Cut to Pravin Mahajan’s case: Pravin surrendered before the Worli Police within hours of shooting his elder brother Pramod Mahajan. Pravin, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 18, 2007, died at Thane’s Jupiter Hospital on March 3, 2010 following a multi-organ failure caused by “extensive pontine haemorrhage with sepsis. Pravin breathed his last after having remained in coma for 81-long days.
Pravin was 50 and is survived by his wife Sarangi, son Kapil and daughter Vrushali. After two untimely deaths in the family, Munde died of a cardiac arrest after the road accident on Tuesday morning.Ironical it may seem, but all the three deaths — that of Pramod Mahajan (May 3, 2006), Pravin Mahajan (March 3, 2010) and Munde (June 3, 2014) — took place on the third of a month. Again, “3” appears to be jinxed number for the family.
