A young man has been remanded in custody charged with the murder of his teenage wife at a house in south London.
Mehak Sharma, 19, who had recently arrived in the UK from India, was found stabbed to death at a property on Ash Tree Way, Croydon just after 4pm on Sunday. Sahil Sharma, 23, who lived at the same address, appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
Sharma - a millennium baby born on January 1, 2000 - is next due at the Old Bailey on Thursday.
Ms Sharma's next of kin have been informed of her death and formal identification is yet to be completed.
A special post-mortem examination is scheduled to take place on Tuesday. Metropolitan Police detectives are appealing to the public for more information about the fatal stabbing - the eighth homicide in Croydon since January, making it statistically the worst borough in London.
Anyone who saw or heard a disturbance on Sunday afternoon at the property in Ash Tree Way is asked to call police.
Witnesses on Monday described how armed police backed up by a helicopter swooped on the south London street.
It is believed a couple, living there with a child, bought the three-bedroomed terraced home for £445,000 in July and had been renting out rooms.
A neighbour said: “There was a police helicopter and armed officers. It was chaos."
Another neighbour said: “There was pandemonium last night, there were police everywhere. They kicked the door open of the house where it happened."
A 23-year-old suspect was arrested at the property but was taken to hospital for treatment to a minor head injury, a Met spokesman said.