JHABUA: Suspecting her character, a 25-year-old man allegedly slashed his wife's nose with a shaving blade in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua district, leaving her seriously injured and requiring plastic surgery, police said on Wednesday.
The accused was arrested on Wednesday, they said.
Ranapur police station in-charge Dinesh Rawat told PTI over the phone that the man slashed his wife's nose with a shaving blade in anger during an argument in a village on Tuesday evening.
He said the accused suspected his 23-year-old wife's character and this led to the blade attack.
Rawat said the couple had been working in a factory in neighbouring Gujarat for the past five months and returned to their village on Tuesday with their six-year-old son.
The police officer said, "The accused suspected that his wife was in contact with an migrant worker employed in the factory."
He stated that police inspected the crime scene two times, but could not find the severed part of the woman's nose.
"We suspect dogs or wild animals ate the severed part of the nose during night," Rawat said.
After the incident, the accused took his badly injured wife on a motorcycle to a nearby hospital, he stated.
"During interrogation, the accused confessed to his crime. He said by cutting off his wife's nose, he wanted to teach her a lesson," said the officer.
Post-arrest, the man was produced in a local court, which sent him to jail under judicial custody.
The woman is currently admitted to the district hospital in Jhabua.
Civil Surgeon Dr ML Malviya stated, "About 50 per cent of the woman's nose was severed in the attack.
Although the patient is out of danger, we have advised plastic surgery on her nose."