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Murdered Delhi cop’s husband kills himself, say police
The initial probe revealed that the couple was living separately but was in touch on the phone. Since both of them are dead now, the exact sequence of events leading to their deaths has not yet been ascertained.
Nearly 14 hours after a 32-year-old Delhi Police woman constable was found shot to death in a car in Delhi’s Lodhi Colony, her husband, who was the prime suspect in the murder case, allegedly killed himself with his service pistol at Jamalpur village in Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) Meerut Tuesday night, officials of Delhi and UP Police said.
Around 11pm, a joint team of Delhi Police’s south district and the special cell was questioning the head constable Manoj’s relatives in the village regarding his whereabouts when they heard a gunshot in a sugarcane field nearby. They rushed to the field and found Manoj bleeding from the head.
A bullet entry wound was found in his right temple and his service pistol was lying nearby. The local police were informed about the incident, deputy commissioner of police (south) Atul Kumar Thakur said.
Brajesh Kumar Singh, station house officer (SHO) of Incholi police station, said that the head constable’s body was sent to a government hospital for autopsy. “The pistol has been sent to a forensic lab for examination. Inquest proceedings under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) have been initiated,” Singh said.
On Tuesday around 9am, the body of constable Renu Malik was found on the front passenger seat of a Maruti Ritz car in Lodhi Colony. She was posted to the outer-north district’s Covid cell. The police started working on the theory that her husband, head constable Manoj who was posted to the special cell, had killed her due to marital discord. He was missing since her murder and the car belonged to his colleague.
The initial probe revealed that the couple was living separately but was in touch on the phone. Since both of them are dead now, the exact sequence of events leading to their deaths has not yet been ascertained.
“Whether the constable was killed by her husband, who then used the same service pistol to kill himself is being probed. He, however, was our prime suspect as all the circumstantial evidence pointed towards him,” DCP Thakur added.
Many police officers suspect that the head constable may have killed himself out of guilt. His relatives told the police that they asked him to surrender when he came seeking shelter at their home, one of the officers said, requesting anonymity.
