Months after ‘suicide’ video, Gujarat man kills estranged wife in US

On the day of the murder, he allegedly called his wife and asked her to take the child with her (Representative image)

AHMEDABAD: A 32-year-old Gujarati man from Kadi in Mehsana district has been charged with first-degree murder in Chicago for allegedly stabbing his wife to death — just months after he had publicly spoken of the “emotional distress” caused by her leaving him.Chicago police said officers found the woman, also 32, unresponsive in an apartment in Block 4800 of North Avers Avenue in Albany Park on Aug 9, at around 1.48 pm local time. She had a stab wound to her neck and was pronounced dead at the scene.The accused was arrested about nine hours later at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.Police have so far confirmed the killing, the stabbing injury, the location of the incident, the arrest and the charge. The woman’s identity has not been disclosed.Family members of the accused, who spoke to TOI, said the couple had moved to the United States eight years ago and were living in Chicago after relocating from Michigan. They alleged that the woman had twice left her husband for a man nearly a decade younger than her, leaving the couple’s five-year-old daughter in his care.According to relatives, the accused had sent his daughter to India a few days before the killing. On the day of the murder, he allegedly called his wife and asked her to take the child with her — a plea, family members claimed, that was merely a pretext to lure her to the apartment.In May this year, after the woman first left him, the accused had posted a video in Gujarati in which he spoke of contemplating suicide and appealed to relatives to step in.The woman returned after her relationship with the younger man reportedly soured. But the reconciliation was short-lived, sources said, and she left him again.