Delhi man kills pregnant wife, surrenders
A man allegedly killed his 29-year-old pregnant wife in New Delhi’s Dakshinpuri on Sunday and then walked to a nearby police station to confess to having strangled her in a fit of anger because she stepped out of their house during the Covid-19 lockdown, investigators said on Monday. The victim’s family said the man, Vinay Sonewal, was an abusive husband.
The family added that the woman, Hemlata, who married Sonewal in December 2018, filed for divorce within six months of the wedding because of incessant domestic violence. “However, court asked my sister and Sonewal to resolve their marital discord by staying together. But Sonewal did not mend his ways, and the violence continued,” said Hemlata’s sister, Asha.
“We have learnt that the woman had filed for divorce in a Delhi court. We are trying to find out its status,” said a police officer privy to the investigation of the murder case.
Police said that Sonewal, 36, an auto-rickshaw driver, told them that he was angry because Hemlata
stepped out of house during the lockdown. “The woman’s family has told us that the couple had an altercation in the evening (of the murder) as well. When her husband left home, the woman went to drop her eight-year-old daughter to her parents’ house in the neighbourhood,” the officer cited above said.
DCP (south) Atul Kumar Thakur said Sonewal told them when he returned with food from a nearby eatery at around 9pm on Sunday he found their house locked and his wife talking to some people in the neighbourhood. Thee crime took place between then and 12.30am on Monday, when Sonewal came to the Ambedkar Nagar police station to turn himself in. The DCP said a police team rushed to their home and found the woman’s body on a bed. Hemlata was five months pregnant.
“A case of murder (Section 302 of the IPC) was registered and Sonewal was arrested. His wife’s body was sent to the AIIMS mortuary for autopsy,” Thakur said.
“If required, we would speak to the girl and the neighbours to know the issues on which the couple quarrelled,” an investigator said, on condition of anonymity.