KANPUR: A woman and her boyfriend allegedly murdered her husband with an axe in Etawah’s Bharthana area, attacking him in his sleep and then striking him more than a dozen times in the verandah when he tried to flee. After the murder, the accused wife fled with her boyfriend, taking her daughter along. When the deceased man’s father reached the house in the morning hours of Monday, he found his son’s mutilated body drenched in blood. Police recovered a blood-stained axe near vegetables in the verandah. The body was sent for post-mortem. Police registered a case on the deceased’s father’s complaint and started an investigation. The deceased was identified as Ranveer Singh Yadav (45), a resident of Padiyapur village. He married Pooja (38) from Vrindavan, Mathura, in 2018. Disputes between the couple started a year after the marriage, when Pooja was pregnant and went to her maternal home. She returned after about three years after much persuasion, but quarrels resumed. A settlement was reached in a panchayat on the condition that Ranveer would live separately from the family. After this, his elder brother, Lalu Yadav, built a separate house in the field, where the couple started living. Father Lakhan Singh said, “Ranveer used to drive a truck and would stay away from home for several days. In his absence, I used to sleep outside the house. On Sunday night, Ranveer suddenly came home. When I went to sleep, daughter-in-law Pooja started a quarrel. When she asked me to go back, I left.”“On Monday, I went to Ranveer’s house for tea and saw the door open. When I went inside, I was shocked by the scene. Inside, Ranveer’s bloodied body was lying in the verandah. There were marks of dozens of axe blows on the body.”Elder brother Lalu Yadav said, “Pooja was having an affair with a man named Arpit (40) from the same village for the past 2 years. Both were caught red-handed several times. Ranveer and Pooja used to fight over this issue regularly. Ranveer used to oppose it.” Police said the accused, Arpit, is a resident of the same village and is said to be unmarried. Father Lakhan said, “Ranveer has 2 daughters. Elder daughter Lakshmi (5) lived at her maternal grandparents’ place in Mathura since birth. The 2-year-old younger daughter lived with her parents. After murdering Ranveer, Pooja and Arpit took her with them.” ASP rural Shrishchand said that the preliminary investigation revealed that the wife and her lover together committed the murder due to the love affair.
