Husband held for killing woman with acid in Barwani

Times News Network

Barwani: Two days after a 24-year-old woman died and her two children suffered acid burns, Barwani police on Sunday arrested the woman’s husband for allegedly killing her by pouring acid on her as he suspected she was having an affair.

Barwani superintendent of police Padma Vilochan Shukla told TOI that 28-year-old Vijay Solanki, a resident of Salkheda village, was arrested after investigators concluded that the incident was a planned attack rather than an accident.

According to police, Vijay had been quarrelling with his wife for nearly two months over her alleged relationship with another man. The woman had left for her parental home with their two children. A few days later, Vijay visited his in-laws’ house and brought them back after being assured that she would no longer contact the man.

The dispute, however, resumed soon after their return. Police said that Vijay then planned to attack his wife. “He wanted to disfigure her face with acid and fracture her legs so that she could not meet the man again. He believed that after her face was disfigured, the man would abandon her,” SP Shukla said.

Instead of returning to his native village, Vijay took the family to a farmhouse located in his agricultural field at Mohanpura-Indrapur, an isolated area with no nearby habitation. During the intervening night of Thursday and Friday, an argument broke out between the couple. Police alleged that Vijay assaulted his wife with an iron rod and later handed her a glass containing acid, when she asked for water.

As she realised something was wrong and spat out the liquid, Vijay allegedly threw acid on her face, chest and other parts of her body. The acid also fell on faces of the couple’s six-year-old son Atharv and four-year-old daughter Shivani, causing burn injuries to them.

Police said Vijay initially attempted to mislead investigators by claiming that acid stored for cleaning drip-irrigation pipes had accidentally spilled after a cat or rat knocked over the container. Suspicion grew when he was absent during the postmortem examination. During questioning, he allegedly confessed to the crime. The woman died while being shifted for advanced treatment, while the two children remain admitted to a burn unit and are reported to be stable.