3 min readMumbaiMay 6, 2024 12:42 AM IST
First published on: May 6, 2024 at 12:42 AM IST
A 38-year-old man was booked Sunday for allegedly murdering his wife by slitting her throat inside their house in Malabar Hill. The police said that on Saturday, the accused rushed his ailing wife to the hospital but misled the authorities claiming that she suffered the injury after falling from the stairs. But soon after the postmortem was conducted, the man was booked and his 62-year-old mother was arrested under the charges of destroying evidence.
According to the police officials, the deceased has been identified as Anjali Vardham who was staying with her husband Ajay, their 14-year-old son and mother-in-law Asha at Shimla Nagar in Malabar Hill. Between 10 pm and 10.30 pm on Saturday, the police said that the accused returned home from work. “Ajay is into repairing work and when he returned home, he was under the influence of alcohol,” a police officer said.
There was a verbal altercation between Ajay and Vardham and in the fit of rage, the accused allegedly picked up a knife and slit her throat, police said. As soon as she started bleeding, the accused panicked and rushed her to Bhatia hospital. There, he kept changing his statement over the cause of injury. “He told the authorities at the hospital that she had sustained injuries after falling from the staircase. But soon after she was declared dead at midnight, Ajay escaped from the hospital,” said an investigator.
The hospital authorities then informed Malabar Hill police and as the cause of the injury was still unknown, the police had then registered an accidental death report. However, the doctors and the police suspected foul play due to which a postmortem was conducted. “The preliminary postmortem report suggested that she was attacked with a knife. We then inquired with their son, who told us that there were frequent fights between his parents. And on Saturday night, there was a similar fight during which his father ended up murdering her,” said a police officer.
During further probe, it was revealed that the accused’s mother had helped him in destroying the evidence. “We believe that Ajay and Asha changed her clothes to mislead the hospital authorities as well as the police. He cleaned the blood strain from the house while she went on to hide the clothes worn by the victim when she was attacked,” an investigator said.
Late on Sunday, the police registered a case of murder, destruction of evidence after which Asha was placed under arrest. “We are still trying to trace Ajay. We will soon locate and arrest him,” said an officer.
The police added that during the pandemic in 2020, Ajay had assaulted his wife with a hammer but she had survived then with an injury on her head and the matter was never reported to police.
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