Rajendra Bhatia, who died following an alleged assault on him, had sold the second floor of his house in 2011. The person who bought the property sold it to someone else. A few rounds of re-sales later, it came to Kartik and that is when some issues cropped up between the two sides.
Kartik and a few others have been charged for culpable homicide in connection with Mr. Bhatia’s death.
At the core of this was the dispute over access to the terrace. Kartik never stayed in the house permanently, but would occasionally visit it and spend a day or two there.
“The sale agreement clearly stated that the ownership of the terrace will remain with us and if Kartik wanted to use it, he would have to seek our permission. Accordingly, we kept it locked and the keys remained with us. This irked Kartik, who always used different pretexts to try and visit the terrace, and refusals often led to arguments between us,” said Mr. Bhatia’s younger son Mokshit.
Although the situation never went out of control, the arguments between the two sides intensified with the passage of time as Kartik looked for opportunities to pick up a fight, added Mokshit. “Once he knocked at our door at 1-30 a.m. and questioned why the door to the staircase was latched. He created a scene which woke up neighbours. Reasoning would never work with him,” he said.
In 2013, Mr. Bhatia’s wife Sunita had allegedly been threatened by Kartik’s mother who had asked her to evict the house. “This happened last October. My mother had even filed a police complaint which said that Kartik’s mother had warned us of dire consequences if we did not accept her demand,” said Mokshit, the younger son of Rajendra Bhatia.
The family said Kartik got a tenant through a deal brokered by Oberoi properties, which is why its owners joined him in attacking Mr. Bhatia.
