Nov. 23: What could drive a man who married for love to kill his wife of three months in the most brutal manner possible? Riyajul Ahmed and Jubeida Khanum were, after all, seen as the arcetypal lovestruck couple destined to live happily ever after.

Even hardened police investigators seem perplexed by the motive behind Jubeida’s murder on Tuesday night in her father’s house at Bishnugarh village, on the outskirts of Hailakandi town.

Riyajul killed his wife with an axe, striking her on the forehead as many as eight times. She died on the spot.

Police said one of the victim’s aunts was the first to spot the body lying in a pool of blood. Shocked members of the family later found Riyajul hiding in a goods truck in nearby Boalipar village. They beat him up before handing him over to the police. The accused had to be admitted to hospital immediately after his arrest.Riyajul has since confessed to murdering his wife but not cited any reason for doing so. “It’s one of the strangest murder cases I have investigated,” a police officer said.

A member of the victim’s family said Riyajul, who hails from Changsari in Kamrup district, came to Hailakandi three-and-a-half years ago looking for a job and was recruited by minister Gautam Roy’s private assistant, Gautam Gupta, as his personal driver.

Jubeida, whose father Abdul Rahim Barbhuiya is also a driver attached to the deputy commissioner’s office in Hailakandi, fell in love with the youth and the couple married on August 15 this year. They rented a house at Sirajpatty in Hailakandi town but shifted to Barbhuiya’s house in Bishnugarh soon after.

Family members and neighbours said they had no inkling of the couple’s relationship being under strain. “From what we saw, they were happy with one another. There was no sign of tension in their married life, which is why this incident is all the more shocking,” a tearful Barbhuiya said.

The police handed Jubeida’s body to her parents yesterday after the mandatory post-mortem. What remains to be done is crack the mystery behind a marriage that ended in tragedy.

MARITAL HELL

Oct. 26: A postal department employee, Samsul Zaman, hacks his wife to death in Guwahati. The murder is committed on the very day the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act takes effect

Nov. 9: A Dibrugarh-based OIL employee, Purnananda Chetia, stabs his wife Swapna to death in public

Nov. 16: A Guwahati-based doctor, Hiren Kalita, is arrested for the murder of his wife

Nov. 21: Driver Riyajul Ahmed uses an axe on his wife Jubeida in Hailakandi