The mysterious, brutal death of Jhanvi Kukreja begs the question: do we even know what's going on in the adolescent head? Dosti, love aur dhoka seem the mantra as mental health experts see teens swim between aggression, revenge, validation and sexual exploration
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"On my birthday last year, Jhanvi wished me five minutes past midnight. She sent eight apologetic messages for that,” says a close friend of Jhanvi Kukreja (with the police yet to ascertain sexual assault, mid-day has refrained from identifying her. The family has consented for her name and pictures to be used for this report), the 19-year-old whose body was found battered on the ground floor of Khar’s Bhagwanti Heights on January 1.
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The friend, who has known Kukreja for 16 years—they were both students of Pali Hill’s Bai Avabai Framji Petit Girls’ High School—says that the teenager was a rare youngster: stable of mind, could be trusted with responsibility and always ready to help find solutions to problems.
Jhanvi Kukreja, Shree Jogdhankar and Diya Padalkar
“She was also a jolly person. All the news reports which say she flew off the handle [at the party on seeing her two friends getting intimate] are surprising. Even if Jhanvi saw something that upset her, she would confront it with a stable mind, not in a hysterical or dysfunctional way. I was present at the last rites, and I saw her body. What could have happened for her to be brutally beaten up? She must have screamed; how did nobody hear?”
That the case isn’t what it seems prima facie—a teenager getting into a scuffle and falling off the stairs after spotting a young man she was allegedly interested in, with her friend—is something even the Khar police, which is investigating the case, will admit.
Accused Diya Padalkar, who is in police custody, convinced the Kukrejas to let Jhanvi attend their party, half an hour post her father's birthday celebrations at her residence
What the police are sure of for now, is the chain of events from 7.30 pm to 5 am, which they have pieced together with the help of CCTV footage and statements from guests who attended the party organised by a common friend, Yash Ahuja. Some witness statements from the party say that Kukreja, a psychology student at Jai Hind College, was disturbed after seeing friends Shree Jogdhankar, 23, and Diya Padalkar, 19, getting intimate at the New Year’s Eve party, and was soon seen speaking on the phone near the stairs.
She is then alleged to have got into an argument with Padalkar and Jogdhankar, who have been accused of banging her head on the staircase leading to her skull cracking (as per details in the remand application that mid-day has access to). Khar police sources say that Kukreja was found with her clothes in a condition of disarray and scratches all over her body. She is alleged to have been dragged down to the ground floor from the second floor by her hair. Clumps of hair and blood stains were found on the scene. Ahuja is the one who reported to the police that the victim was lying in a pool of blood. The police has booked Padalkar and Jogdhankar under sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.
Accused Shree Jogdhankar, who is in police custody, convinced the Kukrejas to let Jhanvi attend their party, half an hour post her father’s birthday celebrations at her residence
While the accused have said they don’t recall what happened that night because they were too drunk, questions have arisen over why no one heard Kukreja shouting, which she must have done. Were there others present at the time of the murder? Did Ahuja have a role in the crime? Was the victim sexually assaulted? Were Kukreja and Jogdhankar in a relationship? How did Jogdhankar end up with grievous injuries to his back and hand?
But, both Kukreja’s mother Nidhi and her close friend attest to her not being in a relationship with Jogdhankar. “This much I know for sure. I had heard about both Diya and Shree from Jhanvi and they were just good friends. I never saw this coming. You know, sometimes, you get a vibe… I never got that [about a possible relationship],” she adds. “But, now when I look back, there are things I see differently—Jhanvi was Diya’s shoulder to cry on, and when you invest so much energy in a person, sometimes, it could get toxic. Jhanvi was always helping her get through life. Shree, I had heard from many common friends, was not a very suitable boy, and was known for his aggressive ways, but then many are like that. They had no reason to be threatened by Jhanvi. Our generation knows that getting intimate is normal—we don’t react to these things. Jhanvi would have never even b*****d about it. These are normal teenage issues, even if they are traumatic. But then, all of teenage life is traumatic.”
Jhanvi Kukreja's parents Nidhi and Prakash met the police Commissioner Param Bir Singh last week. Pic/Suresh Karkera
Yes, the love life of adolescents—and recent studies say the troubled years now extend all the way to age 24—are increasingly more murky than they were just a decade ago.
A group of psychologists whom mid-day spoke to say their young clients have a history of following one abusive relationship with another, which interferes with their sense of self-worth. And, while love is seen as transient, break-ups are still difficult to cope with, and so they often tend to act out. This writer, the host of a love and relationship podcast, has often seen an inbox full of teens questioning the idea of love and dealing with how it doesn’t feed their need to be validated. Their queries deal from getting over a partner who is already with someone else, or dealing with a partner who plays hot and cold, not revealing their true feelings.
Kukreja was found by a resident on the ground floor of Bhagwanti Heights, Khar, in a pool of blood on New Year's Eve. The terrace party was thrown by building resident Yash Ahuja. Pic/Shadab Khan
In a blog post dated February 2020, Padalkar, a first-year student of arts, writes: “Handle my heart with care not because I am afraid of breaking but because I am afraid of the demons escaping once the container shatters.” Another one, dated August 1, 2017, reads, “You whisper into my ear of empty promises and promising threats. Tears blur my vision even as the alcohol blurs yours, poison coursing through your veins. Holding up the bottle you put it to my lips mockingly. Defiantly I clamp up my lips and stare back unabashed. And then I do the very thing you would never expect. I grab the bottle and take a long swig. It seems to burn within me. Throwing it down I watch as the glass shatters into tiny fragments. It feels like the shattering of my heart. I pick up a shard of glass without waiting to gauge your reaction. As it cuts into my palm blood wells up and drips onto the pristine tiles. Pointing it threateningly towards you I laugh maniacally. As I advance your face is suddenly tinged with fear. I know what I must do, I must drive it through your heart but I can’t. I can’t. So I drive it through mine. I smile, satisfied as your eyes widen with horror.”
Hvovi Bhagwagar, Powai-based psychologist and psychotherapist, and founder of Manashni, says a contributing problem is the increasing lack of control that adults exert in teenage lives. “By the time they turn 18, teenagers are under very little parental control. They are very independent and tools like Instagram and Facebook make them even more aware and tuned in. Most of their relationships don’t last more than a month. While they hate being ‘dumped’, many times they are the ones breaking up. Their tolerance levels are very low.”
Friends of Jhanvi Kukreja were called in for questioning at Khar Police Station
This lack of tolerance, living in a world where every whim has an instant fix, has had its own setbacks on teenage lives. Both Bhagwagar, and Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava, a former journalist and author of Stoned, Shamed, Depressed: An Explosive Account of the Secret Lives of India’s Teens, published by HarperCollins India last year, speak of teenagers having little or no qualms about leaking compromising images of partners and friends on social media, as a measure of bullying. “Everything is instant—they want everything now, and their reactions are also immediate. They don’t care about repercussions. I spoke to a 15-year-old whose best friend started dating a boy, and she felt left out. So, she made a video of them making out in the chemistry lab and uploaded it on social media. Revenge is a very big emotion for them,” says Bhargava.
The adolescent brain is fighting several battles. Dr Zirak Marker, child and adolescent psychiatrist, Mpower, and medical director at The Aditya Birla Integrated School, says that the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, new research has revealed, doesn’t develop till the age of 21. “The prefrontal cortex helps us differentiate right from wrong. That means that even as teens grow up, they don’t think of consequences of actions. They can turn abusive and it affects their functioning. They also resort to self-harm. It’s almost like a neurological imbalance that could lead to something drastic and impulsive. That they are also doing heavy drugs sometimes, could colour their judgement. They feel emotions of suspiciousness, and paranoia, and that’s how incidences of aggression can happen.”
Nidhi Kukreja at the station on January 2. Pics/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
Love and relationships bring their own trials. Says Marker, “They [adolescents] truly feel the heightened emotions, and we shouldn’t discredit their feelings. We pass judgment and that hurts them. It’s a crucial age, marked by hormonal changes. It’s also a time when sexual identity is developing.” Add to that peer pressure, stress at home and school—it’s a time of crisis.
For teenagers, love becomes a problem, says Shahzeen Shivdasani, author of Love, Lust and Lemons: Your go-to guide for relationships, dating and everything in between!, because reality doesn’t match up to the perfect onscreen romances, they feed on. “This is what they want, but they don’t know how to achieve it.”
Janvi Tiwari, 22, who runs Menses with Mensa, an Instagram handle that talks of menstruation, says most teens have relationships that are divided into three months—first one is to get to know someone, second to have sex, and third to get over. “We get under another person to get over someone. It becomes a toxic cycle. And people do everything to get over stuff—even drugs. Doing LSD or popping acid is just to get over the fear of being lonely and rejected. Most of us fear not finding love.”
Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava, Dr Zirak Marker and Havovi Bhagwagar
Nikhil Taneja, co-founder and CEO of Yuvaa, a purpose-driven youth media, research and impact organisation that works on creating socially conscious content, feels that for the teenager, love has very little to do with romance. “They are looking for acceptance, and lack of judgement. But they can’t even accept themselves. They are a very lonely generation. They don’t have a community to belong to, as they are strong individuals. Often, they don’t know what they are looking for. The gap between them and their parents is also so wide, that they can’t talk to them.”
But the child-parent mind gap, says Nidhi Kukreja, is something she worked hard to overcome. The distraught mother, says that she was very thick with her daughters, and had educated them about bad sexual behaviour, along with talking to them about issues such as menstruation and sexuality. “I wanted my daughters to be aware.”
A consequence of Kukreja’s death, is that her younger sibling, who is 14-years-old, has been told that she cannot go to a party without parental supervision. “Her life is over. She can never leave the house again. I can’t lose another child,” Nidhi says matter of factly.
Nikhil Taneja, Shahzeen Shivdasani and Janvi Tiwari
A manager at a jewellery firm, she shares that she had been saving up for Kukreja’s education abroad. “She was a loving child, homely and focused on studies. She had collected so many certificates. She always got high scores and even worked for the Rotaract Club. She was very emotional—we recently got a pup home after we found it abandoned on the Mumbai Pune highway.” Ask Nidhi about Padalkar and Jogdhankar, who is a student of Dadar Catering College, and she is sure they were all just good friends. “Diya was always in our house. I trusted Jhanvi when she said that Diya is a good child, even if I had any reservations. My child was studying psychology, so she knew a bit about people’s character. Shree had come over in the past year a few times. Otherwise, Jhanvi had no time, she was busy with her studies. Now, I feel I shouldn’t have taken her word at [face value].”
To children her daughter’s age, Nidhi says, “Be responsible for each other. If something is wrong, go tell someone.” To parents, she urges, “Please check on your kids and their friends. Don’t let them drink. It takes lives. Please don’t leave them unsupervised.”
The case as of today
Padalkar and Jogdhankar have been booked under sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code. Their police custody was extended on Thursday. The investigation is in the initial stage, and the police have to piece together every evidence to file a charge sheet within 90 days from the date of the arrest of the accused. The police have no witnesses who saw the trio fighting or arguing, and they are relying on forensic and circumstantial evidence. The police are waiting forensic reports on both, a possible sexual assault on the victim, and drug use by the accused and the guests. The Khar Police have arrested a drug peddler, who is suspected to have links to the supplier of the NYE party, after information that guests had consumed ganja. On Thursday evening, Jogdhankar was discharged from hospital and brought face to face with Padalkar, and police reports say the two blamed each other. The victim’s family lawyer Trivenkumar Karnani raised questions about the public prosecutor’s incompetency and demanded the appointment of a special public prosecutor.
Night of the party
Organised by Yash Ahuja, the party was a BYOB. Conflicting accounts have emerged about what transpired that night. This sequence of events has been put together by information the police sources shared with mid-day.
7.30 pm Party starts on terrace of Bhagwanti Heights, Khar
7.45 pm Accused Diya Padalkar and victim Jhanvi Kukreja leave the venue to return to Santa Cruz to celebrate Jhanvi’s father’s birthday. Shree Jogdhankar, who was at Padalkar’s home at this time, joins the two
12 am The family cuts the birthday cake. Padalkar requests Kukrejas to let Jhanvi join the party
12:15 am Trio reaches Bhagwanti Heights
12:20 am Female guest feels nauseous, Jogdhankar takes her to the host’s home. Police claims that as per some statements, he was seen flirting with this woman and others too at the party
12:25 am Female guest sees Kukreja and Jogdhankar getting intimate
12.30 am A drunk Padalkar lies down on a sofa. She and Jogdhankar get intimate
12.33 am Kukreja gets upset, calls a friend to talk about this. She sees Padalkar and Jogdhankar going near the staircase and follows them. She sees them
in a compromising position on the 5th floor and a fight ensues between Kukreja and Padalkar, during which Padalkar’s face hits against the railing resulting in a cut on her upper lip
1.30 am Padalkar is seen at Ahuja’s second floor home, cleaning her lip
1.45 to 2.15 am The police sources say that Kukreja died between this time period. Padalkar has not told the police where she was during this time.
2.15 am CCTV footage from the building shows Jogdhankar leaving the building in torn clothes. He goes to Sion Hospital
2.22 am Padalkar is seen leaving the building. She heads to Hinduja Hospital
2:30 am Third floor resident finds Kukreja’s body with help of her dog who leads her to it. She informs Ahuja, who calls the cops
3 am Police reach the spot, rush body to Bhabha Hospital where Kukreja is declared dead on arrival
5 am Padalkar’s father calls Kukreja’s parents
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