A man allegedly murdered his wife by stabbing her over 40 times in Gurugram’s Ashok Vihar area last week, the police said on Sunday, according to PTI. The police found Vanshika Sharma’s body on Saturday.
Her husband Pankaj Bhardwaj, 28, and his accomplice, Nashim Ahmed, 39, have been arrested. “Pankaj Bhardwaj was missing since the incident,” a police officer said. “He was our prime suspect.”
Apart from Bhardwaj, his father Vijay Kumar, mother Balesh and brother Happy are also suspects, a police officer said, according to The Times of India. Kumar is the editor of a local daily in Gurugram. Bhardwaj’s family members are absconding.
“The victim’s head was so badly smashed with a blunt object that her brain was out of her skull,” Dr Pawan Kumar, who conducted her autopsy, said.
The case was registered based on a complaint by Vanshika Sharma’s father Mahesh Sharma, who lives in Delhi’s Patel Nagar. He alleged that Bhardwaj and his parents tortured the victim for dowry since their marriage two years ago.
However, Bhardwaj claimed during his interrogation that his wife and in-laws regularly abused and insulted him. “The accused felt tortured due to the frequent abuse and so he decided to kill his wife,” a police officer said.
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