Man connives with doctor to kill wife to claims Rs 50 lakh insurance money in Meerut

MEERUT: A man allegedly joined hands with a doctor to get rid of his wife, 40, a government school teacher, in an attempt to claim the insurance amount of Rs 50 lakh. They gave her sleeping pills, smothered her with a pillow and stored the body in a freezer for a day.

While they thought they had successfully evaded action and got a clean chit from local police as the postmortem report was inconclusive, an image clicked by the man of the doctor choking his wife with a pillow has now sent the duo behind the bars.

The man was confident of claiming the Rs 50 lakh life insurance and the doctor was relieved as he would no longer have to pay a debt of Rs 1.35 lakh to the woman's husband. The incident occurred in Meerut. Sanjay Luthra, 42, a businessman, had hatched a plot to eliminate his wife Chanda and connived with a doctor named Rajat Bhardwaj who owed Rs 1.35 lakh to Luthra, police sources said. And Luthra allegedly agreed to waive off the debt if Bhardwaj killed her.

Inspector Ram Sanjeevan at crime branch whose team was conducting a parallel investigation said, "Though he was given a clean chit by the local Nauchandi Thana, we continued the probe and took custody of Sanjay Luthra's mobile phone and recovered a few deleted pictures - one of which showed a woman being smothered with a pillow."

During questioning it came to light that Luthra had actually shot the photograph of Bhardwaj and deleted it when the doctor confronted him. Meanwhile, Chanda's family had sensed foul play since the beginning.

Her mother Suneeta Devi said, "Sanjay was trying to get rid of Chanda for some time and had even taken the divorce route. But, Chanda did not allow it. She had visited a relative at 11pm on Saturday, and was killed on the same night. We tried to convince cops at Nauchandi police station, but they failed to take any action."

They gave her sleeping pills, smothered her with a pillow and stored the body in a freezer for a day