Man hacks wife to death over affair, lodges police complaint to feign innocence in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: A 50-year-old man murdered his wife, whom he suspected of having an affair, in northeastern Bengaluru’s Bagalur. He later filed a police complaint feigning innocence, officials said. 

However, the Bagalur police solved the mystery within two days and arrested the suspect, identified as Mehboob Saab. 

Preliminary police investigations revealed that Saab suspected that his wife Mumtaz Begum (45), a farm labourer, was having an affair because she would drink with her male co-workers and was close to them. 

Around 8 pm on August 24, Saab took her to a farm near his house. While she was plucking vegetables there, he smashed her head with a wooden log. The blow proved fatal. 

He then went to his sister’s house in Hoskote and came back the next morning. 

On the afternoon of August 25, he went to the Bagalur police station and filed a complaint, claiming his wife was murdered by an unknown person at a farm near their house. 

According to an investigating officer, Saab claimed he was at his niece's wedding in Hoskote on the day of murder. When he got back home the next day, he found his wife was missing. He told the police that three of his friends found her dead near a farm and took him there. 

"We found the whole story suspicious because the timings, as claimed by the suspect, didn't add up. We then changed the probe angle and grilled Saab. He confessed," the officer told DH. 

Police went to Saab’s sister's house in Hoskote and found that no marriage had taken place on that day. However, Saab had visited them and requested that they tell everyone he was with them. 

When the police asked Saab to bring his friends who had led him to the crime scene, he had no answer. Further interrogation revealed the truth.