A 62-year-old former Indian Information Service (IIS) officer accused of strangling his ailing lawyer wife over a property issue in Noida has been sent to 14-day judicial custody by a local court, a police official said on Tuesday.
Accused Nitin Nath Singh allegedly killed his wife Renu Sinha (61) at their home in the posh Sector 30 on Sunday morning after a heated argument, according to the police.
Singh was arrested in the early hours of Monday after he was found hiding in a store room of his house for more than 10 hours, officials said.
"On Monday evening, he was produced in the court of chief judicial magistrate of the district and was remanded to a 14-day judicial custody," Inspector Dharm Prakash Shukla, the in-charge of the local Sector 20 police station, told PTI.
The FIR was lodged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 302 (murder), he said.
Singh was earlier wrongly reported as 'Sinha'. While the retired IIS officer goes by the Singh surname, his wife used Sinha in her name.
The husband wanted to sell the house -- valued at Rs 4.5 crore -- where they were living, while the wife objected to it, leading to frequent quarrels between them, the police said.
The matter came to light on Monday afternoon when Renu's brother Ajay Kumar approached the police, saying his sister was unreachable over the phone and their house was locked.
He also raised suspicion of a foul play with her and the involvement of his brother-in-law in it.
When the police broke open the house, Sinha's body was found in the bathroom attached to her room on the ground floor, while her husband was missing even as his car was parked within the property. Singh kept hiding in the store room on the upper floor for more than 10 hours until he was caught.
"The woman was cremated on Monday. The couple's son works and lives in the US. He was informed about the incident. We are not aware if or when he is coming to India," Shukla said.
