On Tuesday (October 19), a 28-year-old woman was brutally stabbed to death with a pair of scissors at her home in Banashankari III Stage in Bengaluru, Karnataka, by her husband’s 17-year-old nephew. After stabbing the woman to death, the accused reportedly also set a bedsheet on fire before fleeing. The victim has been identified as Afreen Khanum, a tailor by profession, and she was alone at home when she was killed.
According to the police, the deceased woman was having an extramarital affair with the teenage boy. The teenager attacked the woman as she was forcing him to elope with her. When he put up a resistance, the woman forced him which in turn led to the attack, the accused told the police.
“Saying her husband had discovered their affair, she forced me to run away with her. I declined and she grew angry. She attacked me with scissor, and snatching it from her hand, I stabbed her,” said the accused.
“I set the bedsheet on fire and locked the house before fleeing,” the boy reportedly added.
The incident came to light when the woman’s neighbours noticed fumes coming out of her house. They dialled the police, who then rushed to the spot. The police broke open the door of the house only to find the woman’s body lying in a pool of blood. She had around 15 stab wounds on her body. A half-burnt bed sheet was discovered from the house. The police said that the teenager must have set the cloth on fire hoping that the blaze would soon engulf the entire house and the police would not be able to find any traces of the deceased’s body. The fire, however, died out on its own and smoke kept billowing out of the house alerting neighbours.
Meanwhile, the woman’s husband claimed that after learning of her relationship with his minor nephew, he had a confrontation with her. He had sent their two sons, aged five and three, to their grandparents’ house so that they don’t witness the fight over their mother’s affair with the teenager. The husband works at the Timber Yard.
A police officer privy to the case was quoted by TOI as saying: “He sent his sons to his grandparents’ place as he did not want to fight in front of them. The probe revealed that the husband was present at his workplace when the murder took place. Then we found that the minor boy had come to meet the woman in the afternoon.”
He added that the woman wanted to elope with the boy after her husband came to know about her affair.
The police have sent the accused minor to a juvenile centre.