A pharmacist has been arrested in the UK on suspicion of masterminding five murder plots targeting his ex-wife’s family in India.

Ajith Mupparapu, 45, is charged with killing his former mother-in-law, Uma Maheshwari, 60, by hiring an assassin to mix arsenic into chili powder at her home. Mupparapu is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday where he faces extradition to India. Court papers reveal he is accused of repeatedly trying to kill the family of his doctor ex-wife Sirisha Muttavarapu between January and August 2023.

The extradition charge states: "Mr Ajith Mupparapu had executed multiple plans to kill Sirisha's family members." Mupparapu is said to have masterminded the murder plots from his home in Maidenhead, Berks, using agents in Hyderabad where his in-laws lived. Six alleged accomplices have been arrested in the southern Indian city. Sirisha told an Indian newspaper last year: “My mother passed away, leaving behind a mystery which had to be cracked to save the rest of the family."

She married Mupparapu in Bowenpally, Hyderabad, in June 2018, before joining him in the UK. Sirisha said she had filed for divorce in 2022. The same month he is said to have paid 2,000 rupees, less than £20, to a food delivery driver to deliver arsenic-laced spices to Ms Muttavarapu’s family’s home in India. Her mother was admitted in a hospital in June 2023 and she died in July.

Arsenic was later allegedly found in the blood of the doctor's father, brother and sister-in-law following tests, it has been reported. Mupparapu is also said to have employed two youths to murder one of the family in a staged traffic accident which was unsuccessful. He also allegedly hired two contract killers through an online portal. The final murder attempt allegedly involved succinylcholine injections, a muscle relaxant that causes paralysis, sourced from the suspect’s pharmacist friend.

Sirisha told an Indian newspaper last year: “Even today I question how I, as a doctor, could not identify the issue and save my mother. I also considered leaving my profession. The guilt has been difficult to process.”