Man hammers wife to death, toddler daughter also injured
GURGAON: In a gruesome incident, a 25-year-old woman was allegedly hammered to death by her husband over dowry in Gurgaon on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday.
The accused was identified as 30-year-old Ashok Vartiya, a civil engineer who works for a construction firm in Sector 32. The victim 25-year-old Virpal Kaur, alias Veera, who was originally from Sirsa in Haryana, reportedly got married to Ashok in 2013.
The accused had reportedly been living with his wife and twoyear-old daughter in a rented accommodation at Prem Puri colony in Jharsa near Gurgaon’s Sector 31 market since 2014.
Her family claimed Ashok, who is on the run, had been pressuring his wife for dowry for a while. “Ashok used to demand dowry and rang (us) up yesterday as well,” said Raj Pal Singh, husband of the victim’s sister.
Their two-year-old daughter was found sitting next to her mother’s lifeless body and sobbing when neighbours opened their front door on Friday morning, the police said. The toddler had some external injury marks around her neck, the police said.
“I was horrified by what I saw. Virpal’s lifeless body was on the bed and her daughter was sitting next to her, wailing. Hearing her daughter’s cries, I went to check if everything was okay and found Virpal lying in a pool of blood. Her skull had been smashed,” Rajani Kapur, a neighbour, said.
Another neighbour, Leena Singh, said, “We are taking care of the girl as she was crying since morning. She is too young to understand what has happened. We are waiting for Veera’s mother to come so we can hand over the child.”
The neighbours said that the couple used to fight frequently and that they had tried to counsel Ashok several times.
“She took her daughter and went to stay at her parents’ place for a few days as the couple had frequent fights. Ashok used to come home drunk and fight with his wife. It was a regular affair, but no one had any clue that he will murder his wife,” said Sangeeta Devi, a next door neighbour.
A case has been registered with the Sadar police station under the section 302 (punishment for murder) of the IPC.
“We have launched an investigation. The suspect is absconding and a team has been sent to gather information about his whereabouts,” inspector, Sandeep Kumar, station house officer, Sadar police station, said.
The body was sent for postmortem, police officials said.