Delhi MNC manager held for battering wife to death with LPG cylinder in front of daughter

NEW DELHI: A 32-year-old woman was bludgeoned to death with a small LPG cylinder, allegedly by her husband, in front of their daughter inside their flat in southeast Delhi’s Pul Prahladpur on Sunday night.

Residents of the DDA Janta flats were alerted by screams and called up police. Cops from Pul Prahladpur police station reached the spot at 9 pm and found the woman, who was bleeding from her head, had already died. Her husband, Suresh Kumar, was taken into custody.

Poonam is survived by two daughters — a four-year-old who lives with her grandparents, and a younger child, aged around one-and-a-half years, who was present in the flat at the time of the incident.

Poonam, a graduate from Rajasthan, was a homemaker. Suresh is a manager at an MNC in southeast Delhi, which deals with cargo and shipments.

According to an initial investigation, the incident was triggered by an argument over financial support for Suresh’s brother. Police said Suresh allegedly attacked Poonam, repeatedly hitting her with the cylinder, inflicting fatal injuries.

The couple married in 2020 and were embroiled in marital discord since then, a senior police officer said. They lived together for the first two to three years of their marriage, after which Poonam went back to Churu in Rajasthan to stay with her parents and in-laws. It was only about two months ago that she returned to Pul Prahladpur and was staying there with her husband and daughter, the officer added.

Police have registered a case under Section 103 (murder) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). They are awaiting Poonam’s post-mortem report.