Man kills newlywed wife for insurance money, arrested

A man in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh has been arrested for murdering his wife and staging it as a road accident to claim Rs 30 lakh insurance. Police said the accused confessed to assaulting and strangling his wife before faking the mishap

Hazaribagh: A man was arrested for murdering his newly married wife and making it appear like an accident to claim insurance money in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh district, police said on Tuesday.

Padama Out Post (OP) in charge, Sanchit Kumar Dubey, told PTI on Tuesday, that 30-year-old Mukesh Kumar Mehta had murdered his wife, Sevanti Kumari (23), whom he had married four months back on October 9 night, and staged it as a road mishap to claim the insurance money of Rs 30 lakh. “We received a complaint from passersby on October 9 about a couple lying injured due to a road mishap along the Padama-Itkhori stretch of NH-33. We rushed to the spot and brought the deceased, Sevanti Kumari, and her husband, who pretended to be unconscious, to Sadar Hospital.
“While the wife was declared dead and the body was sent for post-mortem, the husband, who had sustained superficial injury, underwent treatment,” the police officer said.

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However, locals suspected the husband’s behaviour during the last rites of the wife. “We received complaints from locals about the suspicious behaviour of the husband during the last rites of the wife. We initiated an investigation and discovered that he had submitted an accident insurance claim for Rs 30 lakh. We became suspicious and started interrogating the accused,” added the police officer.

“During intense interrogation, he confessed to the crime for insurance money and said that on October 9, he had brought his wife for treatment of stomach pain and beat her up with helmets, leading to bleeding, and then strangled her.

He also laid the body on the road after inflicting damage to the bike and also to himself, and lied on the road to make it appear like an accident,” the police officer said. The officer said the bike did not have damage as could have happened due to the impact of a mishap. Even his injuries were minor. “We arrested him and sent him to judicial custody on Monday evening,” said the police officer.