Hyderabad man tries to burn wife's chopped body in front of daughter

Hyderabad: A Hyderabad stockbroker has been arrested on the charges of murdering his African-origin wife, Cynthia, and chopping up her body before trying to burn it in a deserted place.

According to a report in NDTV, the accused identified as Rupesh Kumar Agarwal, stuffed his wife's body parts in a suitcase and carried it in his SUV vehicle along with his five-year-old daughter.

As Agarwal tried to burn his wife's corpse in front of the child, he was caught red-handed by some villagers who detected the smoke and suspected something fishy.

The villagers approached the police and informed them about the alleged crime.

Police said that Agarwal tried to flee from the spot but could not do so as his car got stuck in slush. He was arrested from the crime scene.

Agarwal and his wife Cynthia were married for eight years.

Rupesh, a private firm employee residing at Gachibowli here, had married club dancer Cynthia Vechel in Congo in 2008.

The couple, who have a baby girl, used to have frequent quarrels over financial issues and the accused was also "suspicious" of her character, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shamshabad Zone) Sunpreet Singh told reporters.

"The deceased used to chat with her friend on Facebook and Rupesh got suspicious of her character and they quarrelled several times. On July 3, at about 3 am, the accused and his wife quarrelled over some issue and in a fit of rage he throttled her and killed her brutally," he said.

"With an intent to screen out the evidence, he cut the body into pieces with a knife and an axe, placed it in a bag and left the house in a car to dispose it," he said.

"Rupesh poured petrol which he carried and set the body ablaze. The villagers of Madanpally (on the city outskirts) found the burning body and caught the accused," the senior police officer said.

Rupesh and his wife lived in Congo till 2012 and then they came to India and were residing at Gachibowli here since.

"They had applied for Overseas Citizen of India (OCI card), which needs to be verified...the matter (murder of Cynthia) has been informed to the Embassy of Congo," Singh added.

A case has been registered under sections 302 (punishment for murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of IPC and further probe is on, police added.