Police in Gujarat’s Mahisagar district have arrested a woman, Manishaben, and her lover, Hitesh Patel, for allegedly murdering her husband, Praveenbhai Nathabhai Vankar, in Gariya village after a gifted smartphone exposed their clandestine relationship.

The Unraveling of a Three-Year Secret

The harrowing incident unfolded in the quiet village of Gariya, situated within the Lunawada taluka of Mahisagar. According to investigators from the Kothamba police station, Manishaben had maintained an illicit relationship with Hitesh Patel, a resident of nearby Kolvan village, for roughly three years. The covert affair remained concealed until Patel made a fateful decision that would trigger a catastrophic chain of events: he purchased and gifted a private mobile phone to Manishaben to facilitate their secret communications.

The deception collapsed when Praveenbhai stumbled upon the concealed handheld device. Confronting his wife about the unexplained telephone, Praveenbhai uncovered the extramarital entanglement, instantly shattering domestic peace. Frequent, intense quarrels erupted inside the household as the couple clashed over the betrayal. Realizing their liaison was compromised and viewing the husband as an intolerable obstacle to their union, the paramours opted for violence rather than separation.

A Premeditated Ambush in the Dark

Investigators revealed that the murderous conspiracy had been methodically planned for nearly an entire week before its ruthless execution. Patel and Manishaben waited for an opportune moment when Praveenbhai would be completely vulnerable. On the night of the crime, Praveenbhai left the residence briefly, granting Patel the window he needed to slip quietly inside the house and lay in wait.

Upon his return, Praveenbhai fell asleep, unaware of the predator lurking within his own walls. Patel suddenly launched a vicious assault, striking the resting man with a heavy wooden stick. The blunt strike startled Praveenbhai awake, sparking a frantic physical struggle between the two men. As the victim desperately fought for his life, Patel wrapped a bedsheet tightly around his throat in a determined bid to strangle him.

"The husband discovered the illicit phone gifted by the lover, triggering intense domestic hostility that culminated in a week-long murder plot."

A Fatal Bludgeoning and Staged Crime Scene

Rather than intervening to protect her husband, Manishaben actively participated in the fatal attack, taking up a stick to beat Praveenbhai into submission. Overpowered and critically wounded, the battered husband was dragged out of the residence by the conspirators. In the courtyard, the assault reached a gruesome conclusion when the assailants seized a heavy wooden laundry paddle—locally termed a dhoka—and smashed it repeatedly into Praveenbhai’s skull, ending his life on the spot.

Faced with a dead body and the certainty of legal retribution, the conspirators attempted a desperate staging maneuver. They dragged Praveenbhai’s corpse roughly 200 meters away from the residence and dumped it on the outskirts of Gariya village. Their calculated intention was to misdirect law enforcement by framing the killing as a violent robbery or an assault carried out by unknown outside criminals.

Forensics and Technical Evidence Crack the Case

The grisly cover-up unraveled the following morning when Praveenbhai’s son went searching for his missing father and discovered the lifeless body lying abandoned on the village boundary. He immediately raised the alarm, prompting Kothamba police officers and forensic experts to rush to the crime scene. A post-mortem examination was commissioned at once to ascertain the precise sequence and cause of the lethal trauma.

Detectives began scrutinizing the crime scene, immediately noting that the location of the body was suspiciously close to the victim’s family home. Combining technical surveillance, telecommunication data, and physical evidence collected from the house, officers quickly discounted the theory of an opportunistic highway robbery. The evidence pointed inexorably inward, homing in on the victim’s immediate domestic circle.

Under rigorous police questioning and confronted with digital call logs connecting her to Kolvan village, Manishaben’s alibi deteriorated, revealing Patel’s direct complicity. Both suspects were taken into official custody by the Mahisagar police, with formal charges filed as the case prepares to proceed through judicial prosecution. What began as a clandestine romance fueled by a surreptitious mobile phone has culminated in a gruesome village tragedy and life behind bars for two conspirators.