A woman took money from her unsuspecting husband and paid contract killers to bump him off, police revealed on Wednesday.

M Kumar, a realtor, was hacked to death on November 19 near the Srinagar bus stand. A senior police officer, who led the investigation, told Deccan Herald that initially the needle of suspicion pointed to Kumar’s business rivals. However, when the probe yielded little result, police started interrogating his family members and relatives.

“We found the call details of Kumar’s wife Mangala’s mobile phone intriguing. She had been in constant touch with Kiran Kumar, her paramour, for the past several months. She had also called him just after her husband was killed. When we grilled Kiran, he confessed to the crime,” the officer said.

Police have also arrested the hired killers Anil Kumar alias Ani, 21; Keshav Kumar alias Keshav, 27; Deepu, 27; and Nagesh, 22, — all residents of Jaraganahalli.

Kiran, a final year BE (Computer Science) student at Vivekananda Institute of Engineering, is a distant relative of Mangala. He started an affair with her about a year and a half ago.

A few months back, Kumar had caught his wife and Kiran in the act and warned him not to come to his house again. That is when Kiran and Mangala hatched a conspiracy to eliminate him, police said.

Kiran roped in his pre-degree collegemate Anil Kumar, also a resident of Jaraganahalli, to execute the plan.

Anil, who had dropped out of college and is driving an autorickshaw for a living, agreed to do the job for Rs 3 lakh. Mangala took Rs 60,000 from her husband and paid it as advance to Anil who brought three others and murdered Kumar.