NAGPUR: Two teenage sisters helped police round up their mother and eldest sibling, a minor, on Saturday for strangling their father to death during a heated argument, and then projecting it as a suicide. The post mortem report and detailed investigation also helped the cops reach the conclusion that it was a case of murder and destruction of evidence.
The 42-year-old man, a trucker, was strangled to death by his 36-year-old wife and eldest daughter, 17, at their house in the wee hours of April 11 during a scuffle. The victim, who had a doubt about his wife’s character, had been at home for the last two months.
The trucker, unhappy with his eldest daughter’s behaviour, used to pick up fights at home frequently. He had also shared his problems with brothers and other family members.
On April 10, the man and his wife had a fight after dinner. The verbal duel snowballed into a violent fight between the couple. After their two teenage daughters, aged 15 and 13, went to another room, the fight escalated further.
It’s learnt the woman pinned down her husband and used a scarf to strangle him. She had also asked her eldest daughter to assist in tightening the noose around husband’s neck.
The woman had later alerted her brother and others, saying that her husband had died by suicide. The woman had offered the same version to police too.
Senior inspector of Pardi police station Manohar Kotnake said cops had initially registered a case of accidental death but were baffled by many discrepancies. “The woman had said she was asleep when her husband ended life. She claimed to be stunned on seeing her husband’s hanging body, and tried to cut the scarf with a knife. The body had injury marks on it but she had said they were due to the fall when she cut down the body from the ceiling fan,” said Kotnake.
“We were also suspicious as the chair the wife claimed to be the means to reach the ceiling fan was also not high enough,” he said, adding some family members too helped them crack the case.
Police said the two younger daughters, aged around 13 and 15, told them about the violent fight between their parents, their hatred against each other, and mother’s repeated threats to eliminate him. Further questioning led to the truth coming out about mother and eldest sister’s role in the murder.
Police also said the dust on the fan was not disturbed at all, which is a telltale sign of any hanging case. The blades of the fans too get bent, but it was not so in this case. It’s learnt the post mortem team of Mayo Hospital too had told Pardi police that there were strange strangulation marks on the neck of the deceased, which had led to the death and it was not suicide.
