Woman killed, forced to write 'suicide note' after husband fails to repay loan

Police have arrested a 38-year-old man from Kanjurmarg in Mumbai for allegedly strangulating a woman to death after forcing her to write a ‘suicide note’ over a financial issue, an official said on Saturday.

The woman, 36, was found hanging at her residence in Navi Mumbai’s Ghansoli on October 21 and the suicide note was recovered from the spot, he said.

The accused, Samadhan Srimant Lendve, was arrested on October 28, the police official said.

“Initially, a case of accidental death was registered and a probe into the case was launched,” Assistant Commissioner of Police Vashi Division Vinayak Vast said.

During the investigation, it came to light that the husband of the deceased had borrowed Rs 6.50 lakh from Lendve, his acquaintance, to buy a house.

However, he could not repay the amount to Lendve due to financial problems, he said.

Lendve used to frequently visit the house of the deceased to demand his money back.

On the day of the incident, he came to her residence and again sought repayment of his loan amount. He then pressured her to write a suicide note. After that, Lendve dragged her to the bedroom and strangulated her to death, the official said.

The accused then tied a saree around her neck and bent a blade of the ceiling fan to wrongly show that she had hanged herself to death, Vast said. Based on the intelligence inputs, police nabbed Lendve and questioned him, following which he admitted that he had killed the woman.

A case under IPC section 302 (murder) was registered against the accused at Rabale police station in Navi Mumbai.