Noose
[Representational image]Creative Commons

A 45-year-old man strangled his wife and later committed suicide by consuming poison. The couple lived in a rented house in Baba Haridas Nagar in Delhi.

The police said the incident came to light on Wednesday when the man — identified as Sanjay Sharma — went to the police station in a semi conscious state after consuming poison and narrated the whole thing to them.

Reports say the couple had had an argument about a petty issue that soon turned serious. Sharma subsequently strangled his wife Babli in a fit of rage.

He then reportedly couldn't bring himself to believe that he had actually killed his wife, and kept checking until he found that his she had stopped breathing.

He consumed poison after several hours, acting out of guilt, a senior police officer was quoted as saying by the Times of India.

Sharma then walked to the nearby police station and lay next to a tree until a constable on duty walked up to him and asked him to come inside.

Meanwhile, Sharma's landlord reached his house for some work and found that the door was not locked. He knocked for a while and even rang the bell, but no one responded. He then opened the door and went inside.

He checked the bedroom and found Babli lying on the floor next to the bed. He then immediately called up Sharma, could not reach him because Sharma had switched off his phone.

The landlord then left Sharma's house and notified the police about what he had found.

The aforementioned senior police officer said while a team rushed to Sharma's house, another took him to the hospital.

Doctors immediately treated him for poisoning, but couldn't save him. His wife was taken to the same hospital and declared dead on arrival.

Their kids, who are studying in another city, were informed about the incident and were on their way to Delhi. The bodies would be handed over to the family after an autopsy, said the police officer.