A man who allegedly killed his wife and tried to hush it up, was arrested just before the last rites at Mullavaid in Attur on Monday.
The accused, Mani (55), a watchman at a marriage hall in Attur, attacked his wife Jegadambal (50) with a wooden weapon in a fit of anger following a quarrel on Sunday night, sources with the Attur Police said. Jegadammal succumbed on the spot.
The couple’s neighbours, who knew about their sour relationship, apparently helped Mani cover up the murder.
The woman’s body was kept in the house itself and a few relatives even paid a visit thinking she had died of natural causes. A funeral was subsequently arranged. But, police personnel who arrived when the hearse arrived to transport the body, took Mani into custody for interrogation.The police received a tip-off regarding the murder from a neighbour, Attur inspector V Shanmugam said.
Over the course of the interrogations, Mani spilled the beans.
He confessed that he had attacked his wife following a quarrel, leading to her death. The police immediately stopped the funeral and sent the body for a post-mortem.