No one has said right out that his wife is dead, except Vik and of course we don't trust the poor chap.😆 However, notice that his family has no problems with him getting married again, his sister suggested a marriage to a thakur girl from good family, Adi was horrified at the thought of Sugni being his mami, but he never brought up any other objection. In front of Adi, Vikram said, just because I was married once... So CVs please don't forget all this and make Vik the liar later. As I see it, there are three options for Vik's wife...
1> She is still married to Vik and waiting for him in Delhi, what most of us thought/feared initially. This is now impossible, because if so, she would have been brought into the discussion by the family immediately. So Vik is definitely not cheating on his wife. Excellent.😃
2> She left him after pretending to love him, or cheated on him. This would explain why he claims she is dead, as in for him she is as good as dead. Would also explain why his family won't mention her name in front of him, and keep the chance of her coming back in his life later for more drama. Also could help create misunderstanding between SugVi when she comes back since he sort of lied about her.
3> She really IS dead. Again would be consistent with Vik and the family's reactions. Later she could also miraculously come back from dead and cause problems, or as Laila had suggested, there could be a mystery about her death which affects Sugni's trust of him.
Either 2 or 3 are possible, but the good thing is that Vik is not misleading Sugni too much, even in the 2nd option, the wife is not with him in any tangible way, so the whole wife being a positive character as per the initial articles should be simply forgotten.