Palghar: Man strangulates wife to death; arrested

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Police have arrested a man in Wada taluka of Maharashtra's Palghar district for allegedly strangulating his 32-year-old wife to death suspecting her character, an official told news agency PTI.

The offence took place on Thursday afternoon, he said.

"The couple lived in Dhanvepada in the district. The man doubted the woman's character, which triggered frequent fights between them," the police official told PTI.

"Losing his temper during one such fight on Thursday, the 39-year-old man strangulated wife to death," he said.

After the police were alerted about it, a team went to the spot and sent the woman's body to a government hospital for post-mortem and later arrested her husband, Ashok Marade, on the charge of killing her, reported PTI.

Meanwhile, Police have arrested three persons -- two from Rajasthan and one from Mumbai -- in connection with the murder of a 70-year-old woman and robbery of nearly Rs 3 crore at her home in Tardeo, an official told PTI on Thursday.

One of the accused, Sumeet Tatwal, was an employee at an imitation jewellery shop run by the woman's husband, Madan Mohan Agarwal (75), and their distant relative in the Kalbadevi area, he said.

The incident occurred on Sunday at 'Yusuf Manzil' building in Tardeo in south Mumbai where three men barged into the house of Madan Mohan Agarwal and committed robbery after killing his wife Surekha, the official told PTI.

The trio made away with Rs 2.79 crore worth of gold and diamond jewellery besides Rs 7 lakh in cash. The elderly woman died of suffocation after being tied and gagged with cello tape during the robbery, he said.

During the probe, the police arrested 37-year-old Tatwal from suburban Malad on Wednesday. Tatwal, who hails from Rajasthan, hatched the conspiracy to commit robbery at his employer's home though he himself was not present at the crime spot, the official told PTI.

During Tatwal's interrogation, it came to light that he had called three persons from his native state to commit robbery at the home of the senior citizen couple, he said.

The accused persons had deposited the stolen cash in Tatwal's bank account, the official told PTI.

While tracking the accused, the police traced their locations in Pune, Indore, Ujjain and Rajasthan, and quickly dispatched teams to those places to nab them.

One of the teams went to Jhalawar in Rajasthan, from where they arrested two accused -- Raju alias Raja Ram Meghwal (35) and his aide Surendra Singh (37) -- with the help of their local counterparts, he said.

Police have recovered 1.81 kg of the stolen jewellery from the arrested persons, he said, adding a search was on for the fourth accused in the case.

(With inputs from PTI)