Man kills wife, stages suicide in elaborate bid to erase evidence

Bhopal: What was initially believed to be a case of suicide in Kajlikheda's Devgreen City colony turned out to be a cold-blooded murder, with the accused husband allegedly strangling his wife and attempting to pass off the crime as a suicide by staging the scene.Police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested Jitendra Prajapati, 32, for allegedly murdering his wife, Sonam, 30, on March 1 and dumping her body in a nearby vacant plot to make it appear that she jumped from the second floor of their house. The accused even cleaned bloodstains, washed the clothes and made the victim wear them again in a bid to destroy evidence, investigators said.Kajlikheda SHO Pallavi Pandey said that Sonam's body was found on Monday morning in a waterlogged vacant plot adjacent to their house. Jitendra initially told police that his wife was using his mobile phone late into the night and may have jumped from the terrace. The couple's children also informed police that their mother previously attempted suicide by slitting her wrists, lending initial credence to the suicide theory.However, inconsistencies at the scene and findings in the post-mortem report raised suspicion. Police noticed injury patterns that did not align with a fall from a height. The SHO said that sustained interrogation and forensic evidence revealed that Jitendra frequently suspected his wife's character, leading to frequent quarrels. About 1 month ago, he allegedly broke Sonam's mobile phone over similar suspicions. No independent evidence of any such affair was established.