The husband of well-known cross-country biker Sana Iqbal, who died in a car crash on Tuesday, refuted her family's allegations that it was a "pre-planned" and "cold-blooded murder", and not an accident.
The 30-year-old, who did countrywide solo ride to create awareness about suicides and depression, died when the car which her husband was driving rammed into an electric pole on a road divider in Narsangi on the city outskirts early on Tuesday.
Abdul Nadeem, a techie, escaped with injuries while Sana died on the spot as the left side of the vehicle bore the brunt of the impact.
According to reports, Nadeem, told the police that he and Sana had disputes over the past few years because of her hobby for cross-country bike riding.
“The meeting between us was actually intended to patch up things and start a new life,” Nadeem was quoted as saying.
Speaking to Aditi Mallick from the Times of India, Nadeem said, “Surely , we had differences, but she was my wife and it was more than loss for me...I come from an orthodox family and she was a free soul. We had lot of differences even then, but we always had each other."
Speaking about the accident, Nadeem told ToI, "I lost control while taking a U-turn at Narsingi and crashed into a divider. After that, I don't remember anything. The last thing I heard was Sana screaming my name. I vaguely remember seeing a few people and told them to get Sana out of the car and next when I opened my eyes I was at Olive Hospital."
Meanwhile, dozens of mourners, including bikers, gathered at her house for the funeral procession on Wednesday.
Several bikers from 'Wanderers', of which Sana was a member, led the funeral procession on their motorcycles from her house in Al-Hasnath Colony in Toli Chowki to the burial ground in Bazar Ghat area. Large number of friends and fans turned up to pay their last respects.
Sana's mother, Shaheen Khan, who is the head of the law department at Crescent University in Chennai, said she would fight for justice as police was merely treating it as an accident. "The whole thing was pre-planned and was made to look like an accident," said Shaheen, who has given a written complaint to Narsangi police station.
Sana's mother suspects that her husband hit her with something heavy before ramming the car.
Shaheen, who practised law in Hyderabad before becoming a professor, said Nadeem and his mother had been harassing Sana for money since the marriage three years ago. "She lived with her husband only for three to four months as they were harassing her. We had also lodged complaints with the police but they did nothing beyond counselling," she said.
"He wanted her to transfer her salary to his bank account. He was also forcing her to allow him to use her credit cards for drawing Rs 5 lakh," she said and pointed out that nobody from Nadeem's family attended the last rites.
Shaheen alleged that Nadeem used to visit the house and force Sana to accompany him by creating a scene. When she returned from duty at 1.30 a.m. on Tuesday, Nadeem who was waiting near the house asked her to join him for a drive.
Sana initially refused but when he allegedly threatened to create a scene, she accompanied him, leaving their son with her sister. "He might have made an assessment of Narsangi area to execute his plan as nobody would be there and it will be dark," she said.
The eldest of Shaheen's four daughter, Sana was working as a manager with Hinduja Global Services. She did MA in Philosophy and earlier worked with Google and Genpact.
She had embarked on a solo 38,000-km journey across India in 2015 on her Royal Enfield Bullet Electra to create awareness against suicide and depression.
As part of her anti-suicide mission, she had delivered talk at seminars in different parts of the country.
IANS inputs