Muzaffarnagar (UP), Mar 18 (IANS): More than ten days after a 33-year-old government school teacher was declared dead due to 'drowning' in the Upper Ganga canal, her husband and his brother have been arrested for murder.

Investigations revealed that Gulabahar had been smothered to death, allegedly by her husband and his brother, who had then taken the body in their car to the Ganga canal road and pushed the vehicle into the 16-metre-deep canal.

Vinod Kumar Sirohi, station house officer of the Ratanpuri police station, said Babar Ahmed Khan, a contract-based medical employee at the government hospital in Meerut, had married Gulabahar five years ago.

Gulbahar used to teach in Purkazi. Her brother-in-law Naved Ahmed used to drop her to school by car. On March 7, Naved claimed that they had met with an accident while on the way to her school. He had managed to jump out as the car plunged into the canal.

However, the post-mortem report revealed that no water or sand was found in the body.

Police had repeatedly interrogated the brothers till they confessed to the murder, the SHO said.

Ahmed said he wanted his wife to give him her entire salary but she was not willing. On March 7, they quarrelled again and he and his brother smothered her to death with a pillow.

Sirohi said that Babar Ahmed Khan and four of his family members have been booked for murder and he and Naved have been arrested.