Bengaluru Man Kills Live-in Partner With Pressure Cooker, Arrested

A 29-year-old man has been apprehended by the police for beating his live-in partner to death with a pressure cooker at their home in Bengaluru. The incident happened on Saturday around 5 p.m. when the couple were engaged in an argument over the man’s suspicion that she was cheating on him.

Police said that Vaishav and Deva, both aged 24 and hailing from Kerala, were living together in a rented home in Bengaluru for two years. They have known each other since college and worked at a sales and marketing firm in Koramangalam, Bengaluru.

Kerala Man Kills Live-In Partner In Bengaluru

During the argument, an enraged Vaishnav hit Deva with a pressure cooker, killing her on the spot. The issue came to light when Deva’s sister couldn’t reach her on the phone and contacted her neighbour. The neighbours then alerted the Bengaluru police.

As per the Asian News International report, Vaishnav was initially on the run in an attempt to evade arrest; however, the police tracked him down and took him into custody.

Police discovered that the couple’s parents knew that they were living together and were also aware of Vaishnav’s suspicion about Deva having an affair, and they tried to resolve the issue. Neighbours around the couple’s Bengaluru residents reported that they often heard the couple quarrel.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police for Bengaluru South-East Division told the media that he had met the deceased woman’s parents on the spot, who had informed him about the couple’s altercation in the past several days. He added that the family had tried to intervene and resolve the issue.

Vaibhav has been booked under murder charges under the Indian Penal Code, and further police investigation is underway.

Live-In Culture Is Blamed, But Who Is The Real Culprit?

Live-in relationships between two consenting adults are legal in India, yet society is far from accepting them. According to society, an unmarried couple living together is against Indian culture. While the debate can go on, the question of whether live-in relationships are leading to a rising number of incidents of intimate partner violence arises.

Society resorts to victim-blaming the woman when a crime is committed against her. It's assumed that the crime wouldn’t have happened if the woman was "married" and blames her choice to have gone into a live-in relationship. Be it Shraddha Walkar, Nikki Yadav, or Megha Thorvi’s case, society shames and blames the woman’s character; the media attacked the legitimacy of the relationship under the guise of crime reporting.

According to the NCRB data, crime against women in India rose by 15% in 2021, and the majority of these cases were registered under "cruelty by husband and his relatives (31.8%)". And yet, the majority of society assumes that marriage is an armour that protects women. The statistics themselves explain that perpetrators will attack women whether or not they are married to them. A murderer will commit the crime, whether the woman is his girlfriend, partner, or wife. If he intends to commit the crime, he’s going to do it.

So, it can never be assumed that married women are any safer than unmarried ones. Married or not, crime is a crime. Domestic violence is still a punishable crime and deserves the same punishment. The problem here is the sickness in the minds of the perpetrators. That should be the focus. But in many cases, society and the media continue to keep women in the spotlight while discussing the crime.

The solution here is to make the country a safe place for women by understanding the cause that’s triggering such violent and inhumane behaviour in men. It’s high time society stopped focusing on victim blaming and concentrated on finding workable solutions to combat the real problem—the perpetrators.

Views expressed by the author are their own

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