Shillong, Nov 1: In another gruesome case of domestic violence horror in the Jaintia Hills, a 52-year-old man hacked his pregnant wife and left her to die in their house in Myrjai village.
The incident happened on October 27, last.
The accused, identified as Bikes Chyrmang allegedly hacked his wife, Thri Phawa (42) with a machete (wait lyngkut) on her head, neck, and wrists.
The victim is now in Nazareth Hospital, Shillong with severe injuries. To add to her sufferings, her delivery date is due any day now, it is learnt.
Though she could hardly talk, the domestic violence survivor spoke about her ordeal when asked. She told the Highland Post today that on that fateful day she was sitting outside in her compound when her husband attacked her with a dao and hit her head after which she fell and then he hacked both her wrists and neck. When neighbours and relatives living nearby came to see what the commotion was about she was lying in a pool of blood.
She is traumatized and fears another attack by him.
Her elder sister Lina Phawa, who is attending to her in the hospital, said that Phawa’s 3-year-old daughter was the witness to her father’s attack on her mother. The little child told them what she saw. Lina said the child told them “that she had asked him why he was cutting her mother’s neck and to stop it, and at that he had harshly told her that he was cutting her up so he could eat her flesh.” He threatened to do the same to her and her siblings, she said. The child is traumatised by the incident, she added.
Lina said that her sister had been in the compound watching over the freshly harvested paddy laid out to dry when her husband attacked her.
Phawa is the mother of 12 children, the eldest being 26 years old and the youngest is an infant who is just over one year old. Her eldest son was there with his mother in the hospital.
Like most of his family members and other village folk who are all farmers, her son was out in the field harvesting paddy as it is the harvest season and they are in the paddy fields day after day till the harvest is all being brought in. He and others who are in the capital are facing enormous losses if they do not cut their rice stalks at this crucial time.
Meanwhile, West Jaintia Hills Superintendent of Police Jagpal Singh Dhanoa said Chyrmang was arrested on October 29. During the investigation, a panchanama was conducted in the presence of independent witnesses, leading to the recovery of the weapon allegedly used in the crime from a jungle area near Myrjai village.
The SP informed that the accused was produced before the court and has since been remanded to judicial custody.
While reports of domestic violence often go unreported in these parts, this Myrjai case is the second case of murderous attack on the life of the wife. The other case of fatal attack was in September 2024 in Niriang village in the same district, on 30-year-old Wompher Suting, mother of six children, who was set on fire by her husband, Dahun Dkhar. She died after eight months as the treatment failed. Meanwhile Dkhar is free on bail, reportedly on grounds that the prosecution could not provide any statement linking him to the crime.
