New Delhi : In a new twist in the sensational Geetika Sharma case, her mother also committed suicide on Friday with the family blaming former Haryana Minister Gopal Kanda, six months after the former air-hostess ended her life alleging harassment by the MLA.

Anuradha Sharma, in her fifties, took the extreme step this evening by hanging herself from a ceiling fan at her residence in Ashok Vihar in north-west Delhi.

A senior police official said she was found hanging from a ceiling fan and a police team, which arrived immediately after it got a call, recovered the body.

He said Sharma was found dead by a relative who informed her son Ankit Sharma after which he rushed to their residence.

Anuradha Sharma’s husband blamed Kanda for his wife’s death. “He killed my daughter and now he has taken the life of my wife as well,” he alleged. Other family members also alleged that the family was being pressurised by Kanda and his aides after Geetika’s suicide.

Police said a suicide note has been recovered from the spot. In the suicide note, Anuradha said she was under depression ever since her daughter’s death and blamed Kanda and his aide Aruna Chaddha for her daughter’s death.

An FIR was registered in connection with Anuradha’s death and there was no clarity on whether fresh charges will be filed against Kanda and Chaddha.

Geetika Sharma committed suicide in August last year in her Ashok Vihar residence alleging harassment by former Haryana minister Gopal Kanda and a senior colleague Aruna Chaddha, who were arrested by Delhi Police later.

The sitting Haryana MLA was arrested on August 18 after he had surrendered before the police, 13 days after Geetika was found dead.

In her August 4 suicide note, 23-year-old Geetika had said she was ending her life due to “harassment” by Kanda and Chaddha. Both Kanda and Chaddha have been accused of abetting Geetika’s suicide.

However, Kanda has been reiterating before the court that no case of abeting suicide is made out against him and that Geetika was “hypersensitive” and the extreme act on her part was that of a “confused and frustrated individual”.