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Indian man who hid wife’s body in fridge jailed for life

REPORTED BY KALAHAN DENG

An Indian man who murdered his French wife and hid her severed body in the refrigerator has been jailed for life.

On Wednesday, a court in Thane, a Mumbai suburb, had convicted Girish Pote, 35, for the 2013 murder.

The prosecutors told the court that Pote killed his wife Madhuvanti Pathak and chopped her body into pieces.

The crime came to light after he telephoned relatives to confess to the crime and they informed the police.

In India, a life term generally ends in 14 years, but the Thane district court judge Mridula Bhatia said he would remain in jail for as long as he lived because of the “gruesome” nature of his crime.

Pathak held a French passport since her mother was from France.

The couple married on 20 June 2006 and lived in Mumbai’s Bhayander area.

They had a two-year-old son, who was with Pote’s parents at the time of the crime.

Police said Pote had attacked his wife with a knife.

They said the couple had been fighting over money and also because Pathak wanted to return to France.