Tamil Nadu: Man hacks sleeping wife to death, held

COIMBATORE: A 36-year-old man hacked his 26-year-old wife to death while she was fast asleep at their house at Thondamuthur village near Kottur in Pollachi in the early hours of Friday, as she was reportedly having an affair with one of his relatives.
An investigation officer said N Lakshmanaraj, a farmer from Thondamuthur, and Saranya were married for the past six years. The couple have a five-year-old son.
He said the two used to fight often after Lakshmanaraj found out that Saranya was having an illicit affair with his relative for the past two years.
“Lakshmanaraj had asked Saranya to end her extra-marital relationship. Despite several warnings, she continued her affair. Distraught, he hacked her to death with a sickle at 3.45am on Friday, when she was asleep,” the officer said.
After committing the crime, Lakshmanaraj surrendered before the Kottur police, who took the dead body of his wife to the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital for postmortem. The body was handed over to her relatives after the autopsy in the evening.
The Kottur police, meanwhile, registered a case against Lakshmanaraj under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code and arrested him. He was later remanded in judicial custody.