Tinder Murder: How Two Lies, A Fake Identity Got 28-Year-Old Man Killed In Jaipur

In a sad saga of deception, lies, and an unfortunate right swipe on a dating app, 28-year-old Dushyant Sharma lost his life after his ‘date’ kidnapped and killed him in an extortion attempt in Rajasthan’s Jaipur. The series of unfortunate events began in February 2018, when businessman Dushyant matched with 27-year-old Priya Seth on Tinder.

However, what seemed like a normal meet-cute, was actually built on a web of lies. Priya started interacting with Dushyant only to kidnap and extort money from him. Dushyant, on the other hand, was married but posed as a wealthy bachelor from Delhi with a fake name–Vivan Kohli.

Tale Of Two Lies

After three months of talking on the app, with both lying about their intentions, the two decided to meet in person in May 2018, when Priya invited Dushyant to his rented accommodation.

Both their lies unraveled soon after Dushyant walked into Priya’s house, and the woman, with the help of two accomplices – Dikshant Kamra and Lakshya Walia – kidnapped him.

When the kidnappers made the ransom call to the Dushyant family in order to demand Rs 10 lakh, Priya and her accomplices realised that the ‘Delhi businessman’ was not as rich as he claimed to be, and had put up a fake identity all this time.

After the ransom call, Dushyant’s father deposited Rs 3 lakh in his son’s account. From this amount, the accused withdraw Rs 20,000 from an ATM near Jaipur’s Nehru Udhyan using the victim’s debit card.

Fearing that their crime will come to light, the accused killed Dushyant by stabbing him multiple times and smothering him with a pillow. They then cut his body into pieces and stuffed them into a suitcase, and then dumped it on the Delhi road.

Criminals Prosecuted

Now, five years after the crime, a court in Jaipur sentenced Priya, Dishkant  and Lakshya to life imprisonment for killing Dushyant. In his order on Friday, Sessions Judge Ajit Kumar Hinger said the prosecution has presented adequate evidence to authenticate facts.

“The prosecution has presented adequate evidence to authenticate these facts. The evidence presented by the prosecution proved that the accused have committed the crime,” Lohariya quoted the judge as saying.

Based on the evidence, the court convicted the three accused under sections 342 (wrongful confinement), 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced them to life imprisonment, he said.

As per the police, Seth and Kamra have a criminal history. She was arrested thrice in 2014, 2016 and 2017 for breaking an ATM machine while Kamra was arrested once in Mumbai.

The Tinder Murder Documentary

After the case came to light in May 2018, journalist Deepika Narayan Bharadwaj in July same year interviewed the victim’s father and the three accused for a documentary.  In a video interview, a smiling Priya, in a casual demure, talks about blackmailing thousands of men before kidnapping and murdering Dushyant.

“I used to go to the men and take money, after that I went out telling them that I had to pay the driver and made off with their money,” she said.

She also revealed other chilling details about the murder including the fact that the trio had already killed Dushyant even before they called his father for the ransom.

“First Dikshant strangled him but he survived, then Lakshya smothered him with a pillow, but he still survived. Then Lakshya asked for a knife that he used to stab Dushyant to death,” she said narrating the sequence of events.

However, according to her accomplice Lakshya, it was Priya who stabbed Dushyant first.