Delhi man smothers wife in sleep, alert neighbours stop hurried cremation

In a shocking incident, a Delhi man allegedly murdered his wife in sleep as she had failed to bear a child in their 14 years of marriage. According to a Times of India report, the accused identified as Vijender Kumar allegedly smothered his 34-year-old wife after a heated argument. Sunita, the victim, had complained to her parents that Kumar used to torture her repeatedly over the issue. According to the report, DCP (southeast) Chinmoy Biswal was said that a case of murder and destruction of evidence has been filed against Kumar.

The crime took place on Friday night and was discovered by Kumar’s alert neighbours on Saturday when the accused was taking Sunita’s body to a local crematorium for hurried last rites. When confronted, Kumar reportedly told his neighbours that Sunita died of heart attack. He also said that the body must be cremated quickly as it had started decomposing. The neighbours were not convinced and some of them reported the matter to the police.

Later on Saturday, a team of Kalindi Kunj Police Station took away the body and sent it to for autopsy, which revealed the exact cause of the woman’s death. When confronted, Kumar remained adamant over the ‘heart attack lie.’ However, doctors concluded that Sunita was smothered and didn’t die of heart attack. The TOI report also quoted a neighbour who said that the couple got married in 2003. But soon, things turned sour over the child issue. Later, Kumar married another woman and was forcing his first wife for a divorce. “We didn’t protest then fearing the stigma of society. We thought it was a mere marital discord," the neighbour was quoted as saying by TOI. After intense interrogation, the Bihar native admitted that he had a fight with his wife after which he strangulated her in sleep. 

According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau data, Delhi remains most unsafe among 19 major cities, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of rapes , 33 per cent of crimes against women and the highest crime rate in 2016. A total of 236,476 cases were registered in 2018, with an increase in the number of murders (3.25 per cent) and thefts (7.7 per cent), particularly of vehicles (12.98 per cent), even as street crimes such as robberies and snatching came down from the previous year.