Delhi: Youth strangles wife, stuffs her body in bed

The Delhi police on Wednesday arrested a 31-year-old man and his live-in partner for the murder of his wife.

Last week, an unidentified body was found stuffed in a plastic bag in a lane of east Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar. The body, found dumped in Gali No. 5 of J&K Block of Laxmi Nagar on July 27, was identified as that of Haleema, said DCP (east) Rishi Pal. The accused, Feroz Khan, and his live-in partner Suman were arrested for the murder of Khan’s wife Haleema.

Feroz had been married to Haleema for over a decade. However, the couple had separated with mutual consent since the last 10-12 months. In this period, Feroz got close to his co-accused Suman and they started living together in a rented house in Laxmi Nagar.

When Haleema got to know about Feroz’s live-in partner, she objected to her husband’s illicit relationship and visited his house a couple of days before her murder. On the night of July 26, Haleema again went her estranged husband’s flat where she had a fight with Feroz and Suman as she was keen to patch-up with her husband. However, Feroz was not ready to accept Haleema again and he strangled Haleema with a stole in a fit of rage.

“Feroz and Suman brutally crushed the woman’s face with a knife and a blunt object and stuffed her body in a bed box. Thereafter, they had dinner and slept on the same bed for entire night. And they waited for the right opportunity to dispose of her body,” the police said.

After spending 36 hours with the body inside the bed box, Feroz suspected that foul smell emanating from his wife’s body could alert his neighbours, therefore he and his live-in partner stuffed her body in a bag and lifted it on their shoulders and dumped it in a garbage-dumping site near their house. “After disposing of the body, the duo locked the flat and fled. A senior citizen spotted them when they were dumping the body,” said a senior police official.

During investigation, the police conducted door-to-door verification drive of vacant and locked flats. This led the cops to one such flat that was locked since July 29. The photographs of the deceased were shown to the house owner and other tenants who identified the body as that of Haleema. The landlord told the police that the couple had abruptly vacated the flat on July 29 and had not given any reason for leaving the flat.

“The mobile phone of Feroz was switched off. With the help of technical surveillance, his location on the day of crime was found to be close to where the body was recovered, said the police.

“Our teams finally managed to locate the new flat where Feroz and Suman were putting up in Delhi. We arrested them from their flat,” said Rishi Pal, DCP (East).

During interrogation, Feroz disclosed that he had married Haleema around 12 years ago, but she had left him some two years ago and had started living separately. They worked as part-time waiters at various restaurants and hotels in east Delhi.

After Haleema left Feroz, he fell in love with Suman, who worked as a waitress at the same restaurant where he worked. Soon, Suman moved to Feroz’s flat and they started living together.