Delhi man kills wife, passes it off as bathroom fall; son says he murdered her

Aakash Kundra told the police that his parents, who had a love marriage 30 years ago, frequently fought because his father was a suspicious man

NEW DELHI: A 52-year-old man in south Delhi’s Madangir locality killed his wife and sought to attribute her injuries to a fall in the bathroom on Wednesday but was arrested by the police after his son implicated him in her murder, police said.

Sushila, 50, was killed in her sleep by her husband Ved Prakash (rght) (Sourced)

Police said they received information about the incident from the hospital where the woman, identified as Sushila, 50, was brought by her husband, Ved Prakash.

“She was brought to the hospital in an unresponsive and unconscious state. There were swellings on her right eyebrow, and the left side of the forehead, bruises on her right clavicle, forehead, and neck. The body had signs of strangulation and nail marks,” deputy commissioner of police (south) Chandan Chowdhary said.

The couple’s 28-year-old son, Aakash Kundra, told the police that his father didn’t trust his mother and would pick fights when she stepped out of the house for work - she ironed clothes for a living - or when she visited a nearby church for prayers. Kundra told the police that she had filed a domestic violence case against his father, an out-of-work tailor after he allegedly stabbed her with a pair of scissors in 2021.

But Aakash Kundra said he persuaded her to withdraw the case after his father made it a condition for agreeing to his wedding in March this year.

On Tuesday evening, Ved Prakash and Sushila, who had an inter-faith marriage 30 years ago, fought again over her going out for work. Aakash and his wife pacified the two sides and the issue appeared to have been resolved. Aakash and his wife, who lived on the first floor of the same building, went to their room on the first floor.

Aakash said his father called him up at around 6am on Wednesday and asked him to come down to the ground floor. When Aakash reached there, he saw his father dragging his mother’s body from the bathroom.

“I asked him if he had killed my mother. He threatened me with dire consequences if I told anybody about it. I was in shock and did not know what to do next. I asked him to bring an auto rickshaw. My first priority was to save my mother’s life. We rushed her to the hospital but she was declared brought dead. My father is a cruel person whom I have seen troubling my mother and fighting with her for years. I want him to be hanged for his crime,” Aakash Kundra told HT.

He added that his father confessed that he strangled his wife, who had gone to sleep, with a bedsheet at about 2am and then. hit her head against the sofa’s leg and shifted her to the bathroom. “He tried to pass it off as a case of death due to falling inside the bathroom and suffering a head injury,” Aakash said.

Chowdhary said the Ambedkar Nagar police received a call from Hakeem Abdul Hameed Centenary (HAHC) hospital at 8:41am on Wednesday about Sushila, who was brought dead. A police team reached the hospital and started investigating the case.