Man pushes wife off bridge

Nirmal Mangar, TT, Gangtok, Oct. 29: A 25-year-old woman was pushed from a bridge 100 feet above the Rangpo river in East Sikkim yesterday by her husband who reportedly said he killed her because she could not bear a child and he wanted to remarry.

Kalawati Devi’s body was recovered from the bank of the river Teesta at 12th Mile in Kalimpong.

The labourers who were working near the bank of the Rangpo river saw Ganbit Prasad, 26, forcibly pushing a woman off the bridge.

“It was a bizarre sight. We were near the Rangpo riverbank when the incident happened. We saw a man and a woman walking on the bridge and a moment later, the man was forcefully pushing the woman off the bridge. The woman fell into the river and was swept away,” said Renu Chettri, a worker.

Prasad was caught by the workers who handed him over to the Namchi police station.

“The accused has admitted to killing his wife because his wife could not conceive a child and he wanted to marry another girl,” said Bijoy Subba the head officer of Namchi police station.

The couple had married a year back and were staying at a rented place at Mandi bazaar in Rangpo, near here.

A police source said the woman had earlier married her husband’s elder brother, Manoj Prasad, 32, in 2010 and the man died last year because of high fever.

The woman was from Ballia district in Uttar Pradesh while Ganbit Prasad is born and brought up in Sikkim.

Ganbit was produced in the Namchi court today and has been remanded in police custody for five days.

“The accused told his wife to accompany him to the district hospital at Singtam after telling her that she was pregnant. On the way, they got off the taxi they had boarded and the man took his wife for a walk near the bridge telling her saying that he would show her the factory where he used to work earlier. Later he pushed her into the river,” said a police source.

The police have registered a case under Section 302 of the IPC (murder) against the accused and if convicted, he would be sentenced to either life imprisonment or death.

“A case has also been registered at the Kalimpong police station as the body was found under its jurisdiction,” said a police source.