Durgapur, March 12: A block development officer was arrested today on the charge of abetting his wife’s suicide.

Arindam Banerjee’s wife Deepali set herself on fire on January 22. She died almost a month later, on February 19.

The block officer of Hirbandh, Bankura, had appealed for anticipatory bail in Calcutta High Court but his plea was rejected yesterday.

He surrendered before the Khatra additional chief judicial magistrate today. Banerjee has been sent to jail custody for two weeks.

A day after Deepali died, her father Moloy Kanti Dutta had lodged an FIR accusing Banerjee, his parents and a woman WBCS officer posted in Nadia of driving her to death.

Banerjee, 32, told the police that Deepali, 29, whom he married last year after a 10-year courtship, rushed to the kitchen after a tiff over a “personal matter” and set herself on fire.

“Deepali suspected that he was having an affair,” a Bankura police officer said. But Banerjee described the other woman as “just a friend”.

“We are probing the involvement of the other woman,” said additional superintendent of police R.N. Mukherjee.