Bengaluru, March 3 (IANS): A young techie was arrested on Monday for murdering his friend's wife, a homemaker, in Bengaluru's upscale eastern suburb, police said.

"The suspect, 32-year-old Basudev Jena went to his friend Debashish's house to borrow Rs.25,000 from his wife Prachi, who was alone at home. When she said she did not have so much money to lend, he tried to snatch her gold chain. Panicked by his attempt, she screamed, that led him to slit her throat with a kitchen knife to silence her and rush out to escape," Deputy Superintendent of Police (East) N. Sathish Kumar told IANS.

The woman's loud screams forced her landlady Saraswati, who lives on the ground floor, to rush upstairs to the flat on the second floor of the three-storey building to check what was happening.

"As the landlady went up, the accused ran down the stairs with blood stains on his hands and shirt. As he attempted to run away from the place, passers-by pounced on him and nabbed him, after hearing the landlady shouting to catch him. They handed him to a police patrolling team," Kumar said.

Police registered a murder case under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code against Jena, who hails from Bhubaneswar in Odisha.

His long-time friend Debashish is 35 years old, while Prachi was in her mid-30s.

"Jena admitted to have slit the woman's throat in panic and to silence her as she was screaming in the kitchen. He said he was working as a software engineer," Kumar said.

Incidentally, Jena borrowed Rs.25,000 recently from Debashish, who works as a senior manager at software major Wipro in this tech hub.

"Both the friends were living in the same flat till a year ago. Jena shifted from the flat after Debashish got married to Prachi 8-10 months ago," the police officer said.

Jena is said to have accumulated debts to the tune of Rs.1 crore after he returned from the US where he was working on IT projects for seven years.