Bengaluru: As his wife Prabha Shetty told him over phone from Sydney that someone was moving around suspiciously, her husband Arun Kumar, who was here in Bengaluru, asked her to be careful. A few seconds later he heard her scream at the other end.
Prabha, 39, who was sent to Australia by her company, longed to return to India and was supposed to take a flight next month. But fate had other plans. Arun’s nephew Trijesh said that his aunt was attacked when she was few metres away from her house in Strathfield, a suburb in Sydney, in New South Wales. She was staying there along with three of her colleagues.
“Uncle was speaking to her over phone and she had told him that she had taken a metro from her workplace and was walking home. Then she told him that she could see a person following her. Uncle told her to be careful, but within no time she was heard pleading with the person to not hurt her and telling him that she would give away her valuables. Though the uncle was trying to talk to her there was no response from her. Only thing he could hear is my aunt saying ‘I think I've been stabbed’. After that the call got disconnected. Our efforts to contact her were in vain as her phone was switched off,” Trijesh, a resident of Bapuji Layout, narrated.
“We contacted her colleagues and also informed her elder brother Shankar Shetty, a doctor in Perth. He has been staying in Australia from many years and has obtained Australian citizenship. Meanwhile, her colleagues informed us that she has been stabbed by a person. After a while, Shankar Shetty gave us the news we never wanted to hear. He said that he had spoken to the local police and they had confirmed that she was murdered,” lamented Trijesh. He added that Arun left for Australia on Saturday night.
Prabha, a native of Mangaluru, was an engineering graduate. After getting married to Arun about ten years back, she was living with her family in Prashanth Nagar in Basaveshwaranagar. The couple has a daughter, Meghana, who is studying in fifth standard. She has still not been informed about the tragedy. Arun runs a software firm here.
She was working as a Senior Technical Analyst with Mindtree. She was sent to Australia on a three-year contract in 2012 and it was to end in the first week of next month.
Her parents stay in Mangaluru and came to the city after hearing to the tragic news.
