Indian man accused of killing wife in Australia asked his son to lie to police

Sydney, June 2 : The Indian man who worked as an engineer in Sydney is accused of murdering his second wife and a stepdaughter, had asked his 14 year-old son from his first wife not to disclose the crime before dumping the two bodies up a mountain.

According to police documents placed before a local court hearing the case, Sanjay Mehta, the accused, asked his teenage son to lie for him, reported the Daily Telegraph.

Mehta reportedly asked his son to tell the police that he searched in the neighbourhood for his wife and stepdaughter for two hours that night.

His son later told police he had misled them at his father's request. The boy said his father had driven him and his ten-year-old real sister to "a parking place" in the Blue Mountains. The siblings went for a walk and when they returned, their father was smoking a cigarette and then drove them home without any mention of their stepmother and sister.

The 41-year-old man is charged with the murder of his wife and her biological daughter, whom he reported missing last month.

Two female bodies, which are yet to be formally identified, were found by bushwalkers near Echo Point in the Blue Mountains yesterday afternoon.

Mehta had initially told the police that he believed the duo left the family home on Dunn Way, Blacktown, on foot and had not been seen since 8 pm on May 5.

The Indian national, employed as an engineer, met his wife on the internet in July 2006. In the following May, Jyoti, the slain wife, moved to Australia to marry him.

The man's former wife, who moved back to India after their marriage breakdown, returned to Australia on May 26 and had moved back into the family home. She accompanied her son to Blacktown police station yesterday after the bodies were discovered.

ANI