A man allegedly killed his wife and subsequently ended his life by hanging himself from a tree at Maulana Sahi under Dhamnagar police limits in Bhadrak district on Tuesday.
The deceased couple has been identified as Bhaskar Samal and Sasmita Samal.
According to a source, some villagers spotted Bhaskar’s body hanging from a tree a few yards from his house and immediately informed his family members.
Then they searched for Sasmita, the wife of the deceased. They found her room was locked from outside. With the help of the villagers, they broke open the door only to witness the ghastly scene of Sasmita lying in a pool of blood.
By then, the police had already been intimated.
A team from Dhamnagar police station reached the spot. The cops recovered the bodies and sent them to a nearby government hospital for post-mortem. During inquest, a blood-stained billhook was found inside the room. This led to the police suspecting that Bhasker ended his life after murdering his wife.
“Villagers informed us that Bhaskar committed suicide. Then we searched for our daughter-in-law. We found her room was locked from outside. When the door was broke open, we found her in a pool of blood,” said Bhaskar’s mother.
Sasmita’s father said, “He (Bhaskar) used to thrash my daughter frequently. With the interference of police and panchayat, we had tried to end the differences between husband and wife. Yesterday, he hacked her to death before committing suicide.”
Registering a case, the police have launched a probe to ascertain the reason why Bhaskar killed his wife and ended his life.