A woman with a secret lover hired three contract killers to murder her husband - but they ended up befriending the man and staged his murder using ketchup packets.
The three paid assassins lost their nerve when it came to killing the man but instead the boyfriend of the woman has now committed suicide to avoid punishment for his role in the murder plot.
Police have identified the woman as Anupallavi and her lover as Humavanath Kumar, saying they put together the plan to kill Naveen Kumar in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Anupallavi had two children with her husband, who is a taxi driver and runs a mill, but she started having an affair and came up with the idea to murder him.
The couple paid three men - Harish, Nagaraju and Mugilan - Rs 90,000 (£955) upfront to carry out the murder and were promised a further Rs 110,000 (£1,168) after he was killed.
The contract killers’ idea was for two of them to hire the husband’s taxi and then they would be joined by a third before kidnapping him and heading to a house.
But instead the assassins went out partying with Mr Kumar on July 23 and didn’t have the bottle to kill him, it is reported by the Times of India.
Then in a desperate attempt to make it appear that they had carried out the murder, they smeared Mr Kumar in tomato ketchup.
When Anpallavi’s boyfriend saw the photo with the ketchup he is believed to have realised it was a fake and out of fear he is alleged to have killed himself in the Bagalagunte part of the city on August 1.
A missing report was made to the police by the husband's sister a day later and officers went on to interview him when he was released from captivity on August 6.
After he had told his story to the police, the phones of Anupallavi and her lover were checked, leading to the discovery that the woman’s mother Ammojamma was also involved in the plot.
The contract killers Harish, Mugilan and Nagaraju were all also arrested while the husband reportedly asked for the police to not take any action against his wife as he forgave her.
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