Delhi woman arrested for murdering mother-in-law

A young woman was arrested in New Delhi for allegedly murdering her 62-year-old mother-in-law in their south Delhi residence two days ago after the elderly woman put pressure on her to join a BEd course, the police said today.

Poonam Rani, 28, was apprehended for her alleged involvement in the killing of Sarwan Devi at their residence in Shahpur Jat on August seven. Poonam had allegedly cooked up a story that some robbers entered the room and murdered her.

"She told us that her mother-in-law scolded her on petty issues and was pressurising her to join a BEd course as she had done her graduation with Sanskrit from Kamla Nehru College. They had serious differences and altercations over this. She was not interesting in pursuing her studies," deputy commissioner of police (South) HGS Dhaliwal said.

On August seven, the argument continued for long and her mother-in-law "taunted on her by saying that had she married her son to some other girl she would have done so (joined the course)," he said.

"Poonam got infuriated and when her mother-in-law was lying on her bed, she took out a blunt object and hit her on head. When Devi told that she would call her sons and another daughter-in-law, Poonam allegedly hit her 8-10 times and she put on the lights and saw her mother-in-law lying on the floor in a pool of blood," Dhaliwal said.

She then put the weapon inside their worship room and cooked up the story of robbers attacking her mother-in-law.

Her husband, his brothers and a nephew had gone to Hardwar on pilgrimage and only her children were present in the house when the incident took place.

Investigators zeroed in on her after finding discrepancies in her statement and seeing that there was no forced entry into the house, Dhaliwal said.

"The blood stains on the walls were not matching with the version given by Poonam. Police also found that the clothes worn by Poonam were not having any blood stains, which was quite surprising seeing the pattern of splattering of blood in various directions," he said.

"Investigators noticed that the single bed in the room of victim was full of blood and the floor where the body was found was also full of blood. It appeared that the victim might have been attacked when she was lying on the bed and the number of injuries found on the body of the victim was much more than what Poonam had stated," he said.

After a search in the house, the blunt object was recovered and bloodstained clothes worn by Poonam were found inside a washing machine.