Bangalore, Oct 30 DHNS: The grisly death of a woman on the street in Nandini Layout in the early hours of Tuesday, which was initially blamed on armed robbers, has taken a shocking turn after some slick police investigation.

The police solved the murder case of Muddu Lakshmi (55) and arrested her husband Thimmanna, a retired KEB employee, for the killing.

Thimmanna had cooked up a murder for gain story but the North division police took barely an hour to see through the crime. But, in deference to custom, they waited till Thimmanna completed the last rites of his wife before they put him behind bars.

Harishekaran, ACP (Crime) said, Thimmanna pushed his wife from the third floor of their house in Shankarnagar. The couple had been having a strained relationship for the past seven years, after Lakshmi learnt that Thimmanna was having an extramarital affair. She had denied Thimmanna conjugal rights, which irked him. Thimmanna then plotted her murder.

The police said, Thimmanna took his wife to the terrace around 11.30 pm on Monday on the pretext that it was raining heavily and would lead to water logging.

He asked Lakshmi to help him ease the water flow. While she was clearing the water outlet, he came from behind and pushed her over the railings. She fell to the ground and died instantly of serious head injuries.

Thereafter, Thimmanna went inside his house and locked himself up for more than an hour. Around 2 am on Tuesday, he moved Lakshmi’s body to the main road. He removed his dead wife’s gold chain, a pair of bangles and covered her face with her saree, in a bid to mislead the police.

He later told the police that armed robbers had murdered his wife for the jewels on her person while she had gone to the milk booth early in the morning, police said.The police believed Thimmanna’s version but also noticed that there were no signs of struggle or bruise marks on the neck of the deceased.

They waited for the medical report, which stated that the woman had died of internal bleeding and her hands and legs were fractured. Growing suspicious, they interrogated the husband and he confessed to the murder, police said.

“The couple were leading a comfortable life as they earned around Rs 40,000 from the houses they had rented out. Several clues obtained from the spot confirmed that the crime was the handiwork of a known person,” police added.