Just months after getting married, model Twisha Sharma was discovered dead inside her home in India.
Her husband, attorney Samarth Singh, and his mother, Giribala Singh, a retired judge, are now facing charges in connection with her death.
According to a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charge sheet cited by the BBC, the two have been charged with “matrimonial cruelty” and “abetment to suicide,” with authorities alleging their conduct pushed Sharma to take her own life in May.
The 600-page charging document alleges that “due to continuous mental cruelty at the hands of both the accused [Twisha’s husband and mother-in-law],” Sharma “was left with no option but to end her life.”
Both Samarth Singh and Giribala Singh have denied the accusations.
What Happened to Twisha Sharma?
Twisha and Samarth met through a dating app in February 2025 and married months later in December, The Independent reported.
After the wedding, however, the CBI accused Samarth of mental cruelty and using sexually derogatory language against his new wife, the outlet reported. When the 33-year-old complained, authorities said Giribala encouraged her son or even instigated the behavior.
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Twisha’s family told investigators that the marriage continued to devolve in April, when Twisha became pregnant. According to her family, Samarth and Giribala allegedly “questioned her character and accused her of carrying someone else’s baby,” before forcing her to undergo an abortion in early May, the BBC reported.
However, Giribala has denied those claims and insisted her daughter-in-law chose to have the abortion herself.
Her family has also accused Samarth and Giribala of torturing Twisha over dowry demands, despite the practice being outlawed in India since 1961, and questioned whether her death was the result of foul play, per The Independent. Samarth and Giribala have also denied those accusations.
“The investigation has found no evidence of the earlier allegations of dowry harassment and murder,” Giribala’s attorney Inosh George Carlo told the BBC. “We have been saying this from the beginning but the media never listened to us.”
Twisha died May 12 in what authorities have ruled a suicide. A second court-ordered autopsy reached the same conclusion.
A report written by Sudhir Gupta, the head of the department of forensic medicine at AIIMS hospital in New Delhi, and obtained by Times of India concluded, “It is a clear case of suicide, there are no injuries of medico-legal importance suggestive of any physical assault, resistance or struggle on the body of the deceased prior to the death.”
Twisha worked as a model and actress before turning her focus to marketing in the years before her death, per the BBC.