Jaipur: A 42-year-old man in the city’s Pratap Nagar area allegedly bludgeoned his female partner to death with an iron rod following a quarrel Wednesday, keeping the body at home for two days with him and the couple’s three children before finally reporting the incident to police Friday morning.The man fled after calling police but was soon traced through his mobile phone and found hiding in a nearby lane, police said.ACP Deepak Khandelwal said that the deceased, identified as Lakshmi Regar (38), had been living with the accused, Pradeep Kumar, for around five years. Police are yet to ascertain the couple’s exact marital status as both Regar and Kumar had been married separately before.A police team reached the couple’s rented unit at a multi-storey apartment building and found the front door locked from the outside. Inside, they found Lakshmi’s body on the floor, with the couple’s three children, aged two-and-a-half months to three years, beside it.A preliminary examination indicates she died Wednesday, police said.Investigators said Kumar had called the city police control room Friday and confessed to killing his partner. He said that they had quarrelled before he struck her on the head with an iron rod, they added.Kumar, a resident of Ajmer, worked as a painter, while his now-deceased partner worked alongside him as a construction labourer.Following the murder, the accused closed the doors and windows of their sixth-floor apartment to prevent any odours from escaping outside, police said. Residents said all other apartments on the sixth floor were empty.They also recalled the woman buying items for the Karwa Chauth fast and puja Wednesday, the day police believe she was killed.Karwa Chauth was celebrated across the country Thursday.
