What started as a ‘match’ on a dating app, and a secret rendezvous for Jaipur-based Dushyant Sharma, turned into a real-life horror story for his family. In a crime from 2018, Dushyant was brutally murdered by Priya Seth, her partner, and a third accomplice, after they extorted money from him. He was then 28, married with a child, and held a regular job as a marketing manager with a sandstone company.
On Tinder though, Dushyant posed as a wealthy businessman from Delhi. The brand describes itself as the “world’s most popular dating app, making it the place to meet new people”, with “55 billion matches to date”. On May 2, 2018, Dushyant got on his scooter to reach Seth’s rented accommodation, where they had agreed to meet. Call detail records suggest that the two had been in touch for about two weeks.
In a couple of hours, he called his father, Rameshwar Sharma, begging him to transfer ₹10 lakh into his account. “He sounded panicked. The phone was soon snatched by a lady (Seth), who after using a flurry of abuses, threatened to kill my son if I didn’t transfer the money,” Rameshwar says. He transferred ₹3 lakh, which was all he had. The next day, he was called to identify his son’s body, packed into a purple suitcase, and left at a deserted site on the outskirts of Jaipur. Rameshwar still cannot understand how his son was on a dating app. “He was a quiet boy. He had just a few friends,” he says.
