Mumbai: Pregnant woman killed by brother-in-law in Kurla

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Kurla police arrested a man for allegedly strangulating a 20-year-old woman to death on Wednesday afternoon. The accused is identified as Arjun Sonkar, cousin brother of the deceased woman's husband. The woman was 7-months pregnant.

On April 27, around 1.30 pm, Komal Sanjay Sonkar, a resident of the Indira Nagar slum in Kurla West was found bleeding from the mouth and nose by a neighbor, Kusum Deepak Jaiswal. the neighbor reported the incident to the police.

During questioning, Kusum told Kurla police that, Arjun, brother-in-law of the deceased had visited the victim's house a few hours ago. Arjun was living in Sonakar's house for a while but used to come late after working in a nearby tea stall. When Komal's body was found, people noticed that Arjun was not there.

DCP (Zone 5) Pranay Ashok visited the spot and formed three teams to nab Arjun. "We had circulated photos of the accused and alerted all the nearby residents. With the help of technical analysis, we managed to arrest him within three hours of the incident," says Ravindra Howale, Senior Inspector of Kurla.

As the woman was seven months pregnant, police rushed her to the nearby hospital but she and her seven-month-old fetus were declared dead. The body was sent to KEM Hospital for an autopsy. The site has been chemically inspected and a panchnama has been conducted.

The accused Arjun Sonkar has been booked under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 316 (Causing the death of a quick unborn child by act amounting to culpable homicide). He has confessed to the crime.

According to a preliminary investigation, Arjun was asking Komal not to go to her maternal home for the birth of her child but Komal had made up her mind of leaving the house on April 28. On Wednesday noon, both had a fight over the same reason and Arjun strangulated her to death.