Blinded with jealousy, a 55-year-old Noida man reportedly killed his wife with a hammer at their Sector 15 house on Friday afternoon and then marched over 2km to the police station to turn himself in, senior police officials said.
The suspect, Noor-ul-lah Haider, a graduate in computer engineering, suspected his wife, Asma Khan, 42, of having an affair. The police said, after a night-long fight, he allegedly sealed their bedroom late in the afternoon, covered her cries with a pillow, and hammered her repeatedly on the head with a hammer until she was killed.
Asma, a civil engineer with a private firm in Sector 62, resided along with Haider and the couple’s two children: 19-year-old Samad, a student of BTech at Amity University, and 12-year-old Inaya in a two-storey house in Block C, Sector 15.
“On Friday at about 1pm, my wife Farida (sister of Asma) received a call from Samad saying that his mother was dead. When Farida inquired about what had happened, Samad replied that his father had murdered her and that she was found lying in a blood pool on the bed,” explained Nadeem, who is Farida’s husband and lives in Jamia Nagar of Delhi.
Nadeem told that the couple was fighting almost daily. At around 5am that morning, Asma had called her sister and requested her to mediate as the fight between her and Haider had gone on all night.
Acting on the call for help, Farida and other members of the family arrived at the house of the couple early Friday morning. “Asma and Haider were counseled for more than five hours by relatives, who departed around 11am,” Nadeem added.
Asma’s mother, Husnara Begum, stayed behind in the house to facilitate the release of tension. “After others left, Asma and Haider went to their room, and the children to theirs. That was when he locked the door from within and murdered her,” Nadeem said.
Amit Kumar Maan, the phase 1 police station’s station house officer (SHO), said, “Haider had gone over 2km on foot from the house of his victims to the Sector 20 police station to surrender after committing the murder. He told police officials at the station that he had killed his wife on suspicion of infidelity.
After Haider’s confession, Sector 20 police promptly informed their counterparts at the Phase 1 station. A police party was dispatched to the house to seal the crime scene and begin the investigation.
“A case under Section 103 (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has been registered at the Phase 1 police station, and the body has been sent for autopsy,” confirmed Maan.
Another deputy commissioner of police, Sumit Shukla, said, “Haider accepted that he murdered his wife out of suspicion of infidelity. He did not show any regret for what he had done. We have collected the hammer from the location and further investigation is being carried out to take statements of the suspect and others.
