A 44-year-old Indian man has been sentenced to life for stabbing his wife to death in broad daylight at the parking lot of her office in Dubai after suspecting infidelity, according to a media report on Sunday. The court heard that Vidhya Chandran, 40, a mother of two, was stabbed to death by her husband, Ugesh C S, on September 9 last year.
Hailing from Kerala, Vidhya was supposed to fly home with her children that night to celebrate Onam, the Gulf News reported. While Vidhya's family said her husband had been harassing her for several years, Ugesh told police that he suspected she was cheating on him by having an affair with another man, the paper said.
According to official records, the victim's manager testified that he had called her, but she didn't answer his calls. He then asked an employee to look for her. "I went outside and I saw her covered with blood and [lying] motionless. She was stabbed and I think she was dead when I saw her," the 32-year-old Indian manager said.
The police identified the victim and her husband, who had entered the UAE on a visit visa. The husband was arrested the same day in Jebel Ali. The defendant said that he had received a text message from his wife's manager, alerting him that his wife was in a relationship with another man.
"The defendant claimed that he was talking to the manager about the message as he too was suspicious of her behaviour. When his wife came, she got angry with her husband because he had embarrassed her in front of the manager," a policeman said. After a heated argument, he stabbed her three times with a knife and left the spot.
The Dubai Court of First Instance found the defendant guilty and sentenced him to life in jail, to be followed by deportation. The verdict will be subject to appeal within 15 days from July 20, the paper said. Reacting to the verdict, Vidhya's elder brother Vinay Chandran said he appreciated the life sentence given to the convict though the family was expecting a capital punishment for him.
A friend of Vidhya in the UAE said the victim struggled to make ends meet and would sometimes live on biscuits to send money home. "Though she was constantly harassed by her husband, she silently suffered everything and just lived for her daughters," she said.
In the UAE, a life sentence means a 25-year jail term.
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