Aparna Malikar, 27, says she has asked Sonia to rein in her brother-in-law Raghunath, an NCP-turned Congress leader, whom she accuses of harassing her and her parents so that “I give up my claim on (my) farmland and house”.
In the three-page letter, written in Marathi and faxed and emailed to the Congress headquarters, the mother of two from Yavatmal’s Wara Kavtha village has demanded a CBI probe.
“I will have to follow in my husband’s footsteps (commit suicide) if his (Raghunath’s) atrocities on us do not stop,” the letter says, according to Aparna.
Raghunath Malikar, a former deputy mayor of Nagpur, has denied the charges.
Aparna had won Rs 6.4 lakh in the KBC quiz and so impressed host Amitabh Bachchan that he sent her a cheque for Rs 1 lakh as a personal gesture. But, she told The Telegraph over the phone, the persecution by her three brothers-in-law had increased after the September 29 telecast, prompting her to turn to Sonia.
Aparna says her husband Sanjay killed himself in August 2008 because of his unpaid debts, and that his younger brother Sunil was with him at the time he drank poison.
A fortnight later, Sunil lodged a police complaint, backed by the other two brothers, accusing Aparna’s father Arun Tathe and her brother Amol of driving Sanjay to suicide through constant harassment.
Arun and Amol were arrested and are out on bail while the case has reached trial stage in a sessions court. Aparna says that recently, after the KBC show was telecast, her brothers-in-law began asking some villagers to provide evidence against the duo.