Furious over daughter’s inter-caste marriage, 79-year-old attempts to kill wife

A 79-year-old man in Mumbai attacked his wife with a hammer, strangled her, and stabbed her multiple times with a knife over a disagreement about their daughter's marital alliance with a man from another caste. He also stabbed their daughter.

MUMBAI: A 79-year-old man on Thursday hit his wife with a hammer, strangulated and stabbed her multiple times with a knife over a disagreement about their daughter’s marital alliance with a man from another caste. He also stabbed their daughter.

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Geeta and Prabhakar Shetty’s daughter Pranita was scheduled to get married to her fiancé Nikhil Save on Sunday. Their engagement ceremony took place on Wednesday. Prabhakar (79) was not happy with the match because Save was not of the same caste as their family. As Geeta was sleeping in the early hours of Thursday, her husband attempted to kill her for supporting Pranita and Save’s alliance.

“My husband wasn’t informed about the engagement ceremony, but I took him to attend it. We returned home post-midnight; had dinner and I went to sleep. I woke up at around 3.30am because of pain in the back of my head,” Geeta, 68, told the police. She added that she saw her husband standing over her bed with a hammer in his hand and started calling out for help.

Prabhakar then dropped the hammer, quickly got hold of a rope, and tried to strangulate his wife even as she struggled to get out of the room. “Angered by me evading his attempt at putting the rope around my neck, he picked up a knife. He stabbed me in the neck and chest,” she said.

By this time, Pranita had come into the bedroom to find out the cause of all the commotion. Prabhakar then lunged at his daughter with the knife, stabbing her in her head, chest and hand. The two women’s screams for help reached the neighbours who helped to rein in Prabhakar.

The family approached the police in the morning after getting themselves the necessary medical help, said an official attached to the Versova police station. He said that Prabhakar had been booked for an attempt to murder under section 307 of the Indian Penal Code and was arrested soon after the FIR was registered. He is currently in police custody, the officer added.