New Delhi/London, April 19: This bizarre deathwatch occurred across continents 11,000km apart over four months back, but few knew about it until now. A British automobile consultant slashed his throat and wrists in his rented Green Park flat in South Delhi while his girlfriend watched in horror on Skype from Reading in the UK.
The consultant, Adrian Rowland, 53, was video-chatting with his partner, Julie Zalinski, when he suddenly slashed himself with a broken bottle.
Speaking for the first time about the shocking experience at an inquest on the death in Oxford, UK, Julie Zalinski said on Tuesday that she had informed the British police which, in turn, alerted Delhi Police via the British High Commission, but at the end of it all her partner could not be saved and she was left watching helplessly for over 10 hours as Rowland bled to death.
On Wednesday, Delhi Police confirmed the death. It said the police had rushed to Rowland's second-floor flat with paramedics on November 27 after being alerted but they could not enter as Rowland did not open the door. The Oxford inquest was told that Indian laws, unlike British laws, prevented police from breaking into the flat.
The Delhi Police version is different. It said policemen had reached the flat even before the high commission alert because a neighbour called up to say Rowland was throwing things about inside his house and something seemed wrong. A police officer had knocked on the door but Rowland told him to "go away".
Actually, a lot was going wrong with Rowland, making him suicidal. Zalinski told the inquest from the witness stand that her boyfriend was in "complete state".
Zalinski said he was sweating profusely and kept saying, "They are going to get me, they are going to get me."
At an inquest in Oxford, she added that Rowland said there were people in the room when she could see there were none.
Zalinski said, "He started bashing everything around in his flat (which corroborates the neighbour's complaint). "He walked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass and smashed it on the table and then stuck it straight into his neck."
A little earlier, a friend of Julie's had come visiting her. "We couldn't believe what we had seen," she said.
UK tabloid Daily Mail has reported that Julie called the police and a constable, Victoria Blaszko, arrived and saw on Skype Rowland with a deep wound on his neck. They convinced him to wrap a towel around his neck.
Julie also told the coroner that Rowland hadn't opened the door when the police arrived: "He didn't believe it was the police, he thought it was the people who wanted to get him."
Rowland had been hallucinating the day before too. Julie said the previous day he had told her that he couldn't talk because he had guests for dinner. At first she was happy that he was socializing but then became worried when he indicated that the guests were already seated although the camera behind him showed that the dining table was empty.
After the British high commission called up the police here urging them to save Rowland, the police reached the house and broke open the window of his second-floor flat and entered it. But by then it was too late - Rowland was lying in a pool of blood. He was rushed to the hospital but doctors declared him brought dead. The police version is obviously at variance with what was said to Oxford coroner Nicholas Gardiner about Indian laws preventing the police from forcibly entering someone's house to save a life. (Late last month, police entered the flat of a doctor couple in Dwarka, southwest Delhi, to bring out a maid who claimed to have been locked in.)
Rowland had come to India a few weeks before he killed himself and was looking for business opportunities as a consultant in the automotive industry. Daily Mail has reported that Zalinski and Rowland were reportedly together for almost two and a half years before Rowland's suicide. She was quoted as saying, "We both really loved each other. We were so happy together. It was taken away."
Just a month earlier, Julie had come down to India and the two of them had gone to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, which Julie described as "the palace of love". Daily Mail quoted Rowland's friend as saying that Rowland "just loved being the centre of attention and having fun. He really loved Julie...He was the happiest he had ever been."
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