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Together, Garima Kothari and Manmohan Mall were a happy couple, and owners of Nukkad, an Indian restaurant a few blocks from their Jersey City, New Jersey high-rise apartment, relatives say.
Both were found dead Sunday morning in what authorities are calling an apparent murder-suicide.
Family members, most of whom were back in India, were still trying to understand the tragedy while speaking to Daily Voice hours later.
Police found Kothari, 35, dead in the couple's Christopher Columbus Drive apartment around 7:15 a.m., with trauma to her upper body, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said.
Around half-hour later, police found her 37-year-old husband dead in the Hudson River near Montgomery Street and Exchange Place, Suarez said.
Mall came to the U.S. about a decade ago to pursue his master's degree at Columbia University. Kothari came a few years later, a designated family spokesperson told Daily Voice.
"They were a nice couple," said an employee of Nukkad, the Indian restaurant on Greene Street that Kothari and Mall owned together.
"Manmohan, a Columbia and IIT graduate, was a very intelligent and caring person," the family member told Daily Voice. "Garima, a talented chef, was extremely friendly and dedicated to her profession."
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