Bhubaneswar: Ambulance driver 'beats wife to death', arrested

BHUBANESWAR: A 32-year-old ambulance driver has been arrested for beating his wife, Lily, to death at Basuaghai near Tankapani Road in the city on Friday night.
The accused, Soubhagya Ranjan Das, was having a heated argument with his father over a family dispute, when his wife intervened, inviting his wrath. While his father stormed out of his elder son’s place at Durgapur Patna under the Saheed Nagar police station in the city and went to his younger son’s home nearby, Soubhagya kept beating his wife until she lost her consciousness and fell dead around 12.30am on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday.All this while their four-year-old daughter keot crying inconsolably, a neighbour said.
When Soubhagya was trying to flee from the crime spot, the locals caught him and immediately informed the police about the matter. He was arrested early on Saturday and booked for murder.
Police sent the body for post-mortem and a scientific team started its investigation into the matter.
Neighbours said Lily was Soubhagya’s second wife. His first wife had left him five years ago in protest against his abusive behaviour.
Lily’s sister demanded stringent punishment for Soubhagya. “The two would often quarrel over something or the other. We never not it seriously because such arguments and altercations happen in family life. We knew that Soubhagya was ill-tempered, but we coudn’t fathom that he could kill my sister,” she said.