PTC Web Desk:  A quiet Sunday night turned into a nightmare for a Delhi family after a 55-year-old man was drugged, strangled and killed in a murder plot allegedly hatched by his own wife. The body of Munna Lal, a property dealer from Sangam Vihar, was found dumped on a road the next morning, bearing multiple injury marks.

What looked like the aftermath of a robbery gone wrong soon turned out to be something far more disturbing, a carefully planned killing involving his wife, her lover and a third accomplice.

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On the morning of August 10, around 5 am, the Delhi Police received a distress call about an injured man lying on Ratiya Marg in Sangam Vihar. When officers reached the spot, they found Munna Lal in a pool of blood, with visible injuries all over his body.

He was rushed to the AIIMS Trauma Centre, but doctors declared him dead on arrival. The police immediately registered a case and started the investigation. 

A plan hatched by his eife

As investigators pieced together the sequence of events, they found that Munna Lal's wife, 45-year-old Manju, who also goes by the name Nazia, had allegedly orchestrated the entire murder. She reportedly offered Rs 5 lakh to Chaman, a mechanic who worked at a shop near their home and with whom she was allegedly in a relationship, to carry out the killing.

The night before the murder, Chaman allegedly gave Nazia sleeping pills, which she mixed into a glass of water and gave to her husband before he went to bed.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Anant Mittal, once Munna Lal fell asleep, Chaman entered the house and strangled him with a rope, smothered him and administered electric shocks to make sure he did not survive.

Chaman, 20, did not act alone. He brought along a 28-year-old accomplice named Kishan to help carry out the crime. To leave no room for survival, the accused reportedly also beat Munna Lal with a wooden stick.

Wife's cover story falls apart

When the police first questioned Nazia, she tried to steer the investigation in a different direction, claiming that burglars had broken into the house and killed her husband after he confronted them. She insisted she had been asleep at the time and had no idea what happened.

But her story didn't hold up for long. Investigators noticed inconsistencies at the scene. While there had been an attempt to clean up bloodstains and make the house look ransacked, the way items were scattered didn't match the pattern of an actual burglary.

The biggest breakthrough came from CCTV cameras outside the house, which captured a masked man entering the premises around 1.45 am and leaving nearly an hour and a half later, at 3.15 am.

Faced with mounting evidence, Nazia eventually broke down during questioning and confessed that she, along with Chaman and his friend, had murdered her husband.

The police also revealed that after the crime, Nazia paid Chaman Rs 20,000, though the promised amount was much higher.

Munna Lal and Nazia had been married for 22 years and had three children together, two daughters and a son. Their son, who usually stayed close to his father and rarely left him alone, happened to be away that night, having gone to participate in the Kanwar Yatra.

The police said Munna Lal was financially stable and worked as a property dealer, but there had reportedly been ongoing friction in the marriage. Nazia allegedly felt he did not give her enough money, which had led to frequent arguments between the couple over time.

All three accused, Nazia, Chaman and Kishan, have been arrested by the police.