Man mistakes student for wife; slashes her in Dadar

Sonali S Lapsiya, a company secretary student, was waiting for a bus near the Swami Narayan temple in Dadar (East) around 9am on Monday when she was slashed viciously by a man with a sickle. The man, Vijay Krishna Sanglekar, was immediately arrested by cops who were on duty at the temple premises. Lapsiya is now being treated for injuries on her back, cheek, neck, and wrist at the Bombay hospital.

The man mistook her as his estranged wife, police said. “He had come looking for his wife who had been missing for the past few days,” Datta Karale, DCP (Zone 4), said. “Only after he was arrested, he realised that he had attacked a wrong person,” the officer said.

Karale said Sanglekar and his wife, Ratnagiri residents, were not formally divorced though their relationship soured within a year of marriage. Sanglekar’s wife used to often visit her family in Mumbai. Police said Sanglekar was angry with his wife because she had filed a case of dowry against him.

“He came to Mumbai with the sole motive of killing her and he has told us that,” the officer said. He has been booked for attempt to murder. Lapsiya’s wounds are severe but she is not critical, according to hospital doctors. She was first admitted to the Sion hospital. But her brother, an orthopaedic surgeon, later got her shifted to the Bombay hospital.