Doctor injects wife with cobra venom in Bangalore, kills her

He had tried to kill his wife twice, but failed. The third time, he did not leave anything to chance. Dr Suresh Prabhu injected her with cobra venom on the pretext of giving her a medicine. He was arrested on Friday for allegedly murdering her.

The district crime investigation bureau (DCIB) arrested five others also for allegedly helping him murder Bhagirathi.

Bhagirathi, 32, lived in Hebri in Udupi district, away from Dr Prabhu, an assistant professor of community medicine at Hassan Medical College, since she did not approve of his way of living. She would tell him to mend his ways whenever he visited her, the police said. But Dr Prabhu would get annoyed by her “constant nagging”. He then decided to put an end to it by killing her, the police claimed.

He first tried to murder her on August 16, 2009, the police said. He had paid a few thugs to attack her in a secluded place near Gorur in Hassan district, they said. But Bhagirathi escaped with a broken limb. He made another attempt on December 19, 2009, when he orchestrated her fall from a two-wheeler and arranged for a light motor vehicle to pass over her, the police said. She survived this attempt, too, with minor injuries.

However, her luck ran out on January 12, when Dr Prabhu used his “professional knowledge” to end her life, the police said. He procured cobra venom from a snake charmer in Hebri and injected it into her body on the pretext of administering a medicine.

Bhagirathi died that night in a hospital in Udupi city, a police investigator said.

Her brother Seetharam suspected foul play and filed a police complaint. The police found a syringe jab injury on her body, and suspected that Dr Prabhu had committed the murder. He had been on the run since January 13, the police said.

The police got information about his hiding place from the five people arrested on the charges of abetting the murder.
Ganesh Hegde, a DCIB officer, said this was one of the most bizarre cases he had investigated. The victim had survived a murder attempt twice, but she never suspected that her husband was behind it, he said.