Coimbatore, 1 Dec

A 32-year-old man brutally hacked his estranged wife at a women’s hostel in Coimbatore and posted a selfie with her body as his WhatsApp status, captioned “payment for betrayal”, police said on Monday.

The incident left inmates of the private women’s hostel shocked and triggered political outrage, with opposition parties raising questions about women’s safety.

The man remained at the hostel until police arrived and was taken into custody on Sunday, an official said.

Police said the 28-year-old woman worked at a private firm in Coimbatore and had been living in a private women’s hostel for the past four months following her separation from her husband due to repeated marital disputes over her suspected extramarital affair. She hailed from Tharuvai near Melapalayam in Tirunelveli district.

Her husband, S Balamurugan of Tirunelveli, went to the hostel on Sunday afternoon on the pretext of meeting her, confronted her about her alleged affair with his distant relative Isakki Raja after receiving an intimate photograph of them, and later hacked her to death with a sickle he had carried after a heated exchange of words and a phone argument.

He then took a selfie with her body and uploaded it as his WhatsApp status, claiming she had betrayed him, the official added.

Following a dispute over suspected infidelity, the woman had left their two children, a 10-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl, in the care of her mother in Coimbatore and moved into the hostel while working at a bag shop on Cross Cut Road.

A case has been registered under the relevant sections, and the Rathinapuri police are investigating. The body was sent for postmortem at Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital.