BENGALURU: Rakesh Rajendra Khedekar, the 36-year-old project manager with a private firm who had escaped to Pune after killing his wife Gauri Khedekar, alias Gauri Anil Sambrekar, 31, at their rented house in Hulimavu police station limits, drank phenyl in an attempted suicide bid.
Khedekar wanted to surrender before police, but fell unconscious just outside the police station. Pune police, who were tracking him following a requisition from Bengaluru police, immediately shifted him to a hospital in Shirwal, and after first aid, shifted him to another hospital on Sassoon Road. Rakesh is undergoing treatment, and said to be out of danger.
“After his discharge, he will be brought to the city. We will take him into custody and during interrogation, we will come to know the exact reason behind the murder. After postmortem, her body was handed over to her family, including her brother and sister-in-law who had come to Bengaluru from Maharashtra. She was cremated in Bengaluru,” DCP (South East) Sarah Fathima said.
A fight over Gauri’s job is said to be the reason behind her killing. Gauri, a mass media graduate, was working in Maharashtra and had quit her job before the couple moved to the city. Unable to find work in Bengaluru, she wanted to return to Maharashtra.
During an argument on that fateful night, Rakesh is alleged to have slapped her and in retaliation, she took a knife from the kitchen and threw it at him. Rakesh, who was hit by the knife, took the same knife and stabbed her in the neck three times.
After stuffing the body in the suitcase, he drove to Pune in his car. Around 5pm Thursday, he informed a friend that his wife had died by suicide, and also called his house owner.