Man calls cops after killing daughter, strangling wife

A 30-year-old man strangled his wife and their baby daughter before hurling the woman’s body from the second floor of his house at north Delhi’s Adarsh Nagar on Saturday night.

He then went on to inform police on phone of the double murders even as he held his dead daughter in his arms.

A police team soon reached the crime scene and arrested him. While the dead woman’s parents have alleged that she was killed for dowry, police said the accused blamed his wife’s habit of frequently quarreling with him. The accused would also allegedly harass his wife for giving birth to a daughter.

Neighbours said the couple fought often and it was the woman who received the beatings. A similar fight had taken place minutes before the murders, neighbours said. Ajit had married Shalini, 28, in 2010 and had given birth to their daughter Vanshika in 2012.
A neighbouring woman, on the condition of anonymity, said the couple had fought for about half-an-hour till 11 pm on Saturday.

“We thought they were done for the day after that. About 15 minutes later I heard loud noise and rushed out of my house to see Ajit holding his wife upside down from the balcony. Before I could stop him, he released her.”

The body first fell on an ice cream cart parked downstairs and then rolled to the ground. “She looked already dead as she made no attempt to save herself,” the woman added.
Ajit then came downstairs with his dead daughter in his arms. He had already informed police of his act before coming down. He was arrested soon.

The couple lived with Ajit’s parents, his elder brother and his wife and children at their own two-storey flats in Adarsh Nagar.

Ajit worked with a private company in Noida. Neighbours said the family was financially stable.

Ajit’s family, except for his wife and children, had left for their native place a few days ago. While neighbours said the murders appeared to be a sudden act, police are probing if his family was aware of his designs.

A neighbour Sanchita said the couple fought frequently and loudly.

“We had tried to end their fights at the beginning, but Ajit did not like our interference and told us to keep away. That is why we did not interfere during this (Saturday’s) fight either. We would have stepped in had we knew what it was going to lead to,” she said. The fights only got more frequent after the birth of their daughter, she added.