Man bludgeons woman to death with hammer, commits suicide

A 37-year-old woman died after she was allegedly assaulted with a hammer on Monday by a man she knew. The attacker committed suicide later the same night by jumping from a building in Bhandup (West).

According to the Bhandup police, the deceased, Yashmita Milind Salunke, a teacher, was attacked by Kishore Sawant near the parking space of her residential building on Tank Road on Monday morning.

Sawant, a real estate agent, managed to escape even as a guard tried to stop him. “As she was being attacked, the security guard of the building tried to intervene, but Sawant pushed him and ran away,” said Akhileshkumar Singh, deputy commissioner of police, zone 7.

Police suspect the murder was pre-meditated as Sawant was carrying a hammer with him which was used to hit Salunke on her head due to which she sustained fatal injuries. The victim was bleeding heavily and was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared her dead on arrival. Salunke lived with her husband and two sons.

Bhandup police and the local crime branch unit found Sawant’s body lying in near his residential building in Bhandup on Monday night.

The police suspect he committed suicide and are now recording statements of witnesses and family members to ascertain the sequence of events. The accused has been posthumously booked under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).