Gajapati: In a shocking incident, a man allegedly beheaded his wife with an axe at a village in Kashinagar area in Gajapati district of Odisha on Thursday, officials said. Police have arrested the accused husband of the victim in the case. The gruesome incident took place at Sara village in Khandwa panchayat under the jurisdiction of Kashinagar police station of the district, a police official said.
The accused has been identified as Chandra Sekhar Karrji who allegedly beheaded his wife Urmila Karji (30) over a petty verbal altercation. A police official investigating the case said that preliminary investigation into the incident has revealed that accused Karrji and his wife had been to their cashew orchard located on the outskirts of the village when a verbal duel appeared to have started between the two.
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In the midst of the argument, the accused turned violent and attacked his wife with an axe and beheaded her, the police official said. No one else was present at the crime spot when the incident took place, he said. When the villagers came to know about the incident, they informed the police. On being informed, police personnel from Kashinagar rushed to the site and took the body into custody and sent it for postmortem.
The police have launched an investigation and arrested the accused, who is being interrogated in the case. While the exact cause of the crime is yet to be ascertained, preliminary investigation indicated that dispute over family matters or farmland might have led to the murder. Urmila happened to be the second wife of Chandra Sekhar, whose first wife had reportedly left, sources added.
Paralakhimundi, SDPO Ramkrushna Pati said, "After we were informed about this murder, we reached the spot and started investigation".
