‘This house is mine’: Bengaluru couple’s fight ends in wife’s murder, man’s suicide

Sumant Jain and his wife Padmavathi had been staying in a rented house in Rajeshwarinagar, Laggere, for the past four months.

BENGALURU: A chilling WhatsApp voice message sent by a 32-year-old civil engineer to his mother around 1.30am Thursday emerged as a key detail in a case involving the deaths of a couple in Laggere, north Bengaluru.The victims are Sumant Jain, 32, and his wife Padmavathi, 29. The couple had been staying in a rented house in Rajeshwarinagar, Laggere, for four months. Padmavathi’s family alleged she was killed by Sumant, who later hanged himself.Sumant, a civil engineer working at a firm in Nandini Layout, married Padmavathi four years ago. They had no children. Padmavathi, also an engineer working in a tech company in Whitefield, was originally from Dharwad district.Based on preliminary investigation, police said Sumant sent a voice message to his mother through WhatsApp around 1.30am Thursday. He reportedly said he was having a quarrel with Padmavathi after she told him that, ‘This house is mine’.An upset Suman is said to have told his mother in the message that he was going to end his life and she should take his provident fund money and belongings kept in the house.Deputy commissioner of police (north-west) Nagesh DL said Padmavathi’s family members filed a complaint, accusing her husband of killing her and then dying by suicide. “We are yet to ascertain if she also committed suicide or it was a murder. She was found lying dead while her husband was found hanging,” Nagesh said.Another senior officer said after hearing Sumant’s voice message, his mother and family members tried to reach him on the phone. When he didn’t respond, they checked the couple’s rented house and found their bodies.