Bengaluru: Woman's suicide turns out to be murder by her live-in partner

A 24-year-old man killed his live-in partner of four years and tried to pass it off as suicide. The autopsy report called his bluff. Police have arrested him.

On December 7, a critically injured woman in her mid-20s was taken to Abiramm Hospital, Hosa Road, South Bengaluru. Doctors pronounced her dead on arrival and presumed she had hanged herself. Since it was a medico-legal case, the hospital informed the police.

A careful examination by the police revealed blood spots on her lower chin. Cops assumed they were caused by the ligature mark. A ligature mark is a pressure mark on the part of the body that’s tied or bound tightly, mostly in cases of hanging or strangulation. Police sent the body to the mortuary.

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Police checked the woman’s call history and contacted her parents the next day. The parents identified the body as that of their daughter, Sunitha C. But they said she had no reason to end her life.

Police opened a case of unnatural death and sent the body for a post-mortem on December 10. While examining the body, the parents pointed to a wound around her neck and suspected foul play. They also told the police that Sunitha had been living with Prashanth, 24, in Singasandra but they were not married. Two days later, the autopsy report noted that “death was due to compression of the
neck”.

When questioned by police, Prashanth claimed Sunitha had killed herself but he did not explain why she had done so. But he eventually opened up. He said Sunitha had been asking him to marry her but he didn’t want to. He was three years younger than her and wanted his younger sister to get married first. The couple fought over the matter, and Prashanth ended up strangling her. He later hanged her body to make it look like suicide.

C K Baba, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast), said the autopsy report helped dig out the truth. “We initially registered a case under Section 174 (of the CrPC) and later converted it into a case of murder. The woman had insisted that they get married but he didn’t agree and killed her,” he said.