Disturbed woman who watched her banker-lover jump to death repeats the act

Mumbai Mirror

Mumbai, 12 January 2012:  Nisha Mani critical after jumping off 4th floor, 2 days after Vishal Gambhir flung himself from a high-rise. She’d told cops Gambhir was upset because she wasn’t leaving her husband for him

 

In another tragic chapter to the suicide of a senior banker, the woman who had watched him jump to his death two days ago tried to kill herself in a similar manner on Wednesday.

 

Twenty-five-year-old Nisha Mani, who had told the police that she was having an extra-marital affair with banker Vishal Gambhir, jumped from the bedroom window of her parents’ fourth-floor apartment in Andheri. Nisha has been admitted in Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani hospital, and doctors say her condition is “critical”.

 

On Monday (Jan 9), she was in Gambhir’s house when he had flung himself out of his 18th-floor apartment in Goregaon’s Oberoi Woods Tower. Nisha told the police that Gambhir, a divorcee, was upset that she was refusing to leave her husband for him.

 

She said Gambhir told her it was better he died since he was not able to keep anyone happy, and jumped out before she could react.

(From left) Nisha Mani, Vishal Gambhir, and the Andheri building from where she jumped on Wednesday

Nisha’s family told the police that she had been extremely disturbed since Gambhir’s suicide. A property consultant in her father’s firm, she had stopped eating, and would suddenly burst into tears recalling Monday’s events.

 

At around 12.30 pm yesterday (Jan 11), screams rang out of Manish Vijay Co-operative Housing Society at Four Bungalows as Nisha’s plunge was spotted by a neighbour on the first floor of the building. The noise alerted the building’s watchman Virpal Singh, who rushed to the spot. He saw Nisha lying unconscious in a pool of blood, and pressed the back of her head in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

 

Soon a crowd gathered, and within minutes her brother was frantically driving her to the hospital. Since Nisha had landed head-first, doctors told the family that her chances of survival were slim.

 

When contacted, Senior Inspector (D N Nagar Police Station) Vijay Bhoite said, “We know the background and events over the past few days that could have led the woman to take such a step. At the moment, all we hope for is her survival.”

 

Nisha and Gambhir first met as colleagues in 2008 in the international bank where Gambhir was a vice-president. She got married the following year, only a few months before Gambhir procured a divorce from his wife. With Nisha’s own marriage slowly started falling apart, she was drawn to her former co-worker, and began dating him in 2010. She had told the cops that Gambhir proposed marriage to her several times, but despite their relationship, she couldn’t bring herself to leave her husband.

 

The 28-year-old Gambhir’s body was cremated on Tuesday. At the time of going to print, Nisha’s husband was by her side at the hospital, and a case of attempted suicide had been registered at the D N Nagar Police Station.