The right of a wronged child

Rohit Shekhar's successful legal fight established the right of a child - at any age - to know his paternity

Sometimes in a journalist’s life come stories that haunt them for a long time. The life of Rohit Shekhar Tiwari, who died this week aged 40 (the police suspect he was murdered), is one such story. I had met him with his mother at their house in South Delhi in 2014, a day after Narayan Dutt Tiwari, a four-time chief minister and former Andhra Pradesh governor, finally publicly acknowledged him as his biological son. For six years, Rohit Shekhar had been fighting a paternity suit against the powerful politician.

That late afternoon I had expected to meet a triumphant, or perhaps