Dhanan Ram and (above) wife Nirmala

A young man allegedly unable to come to terms with his wife walking out of their marriage pushed her off the terrace of a three-storeyed Howrah building on Wednesday morning and then jumped to his death.

Dhanan Ram, 30, was brought dead to a government hospital but wife Nirmala, 23, survived the fall and was shifted to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital. Doctors said she was in a critical condition.

The couple, who had a love marriage five years ago and were separated for barely a week, have a three-and-a-half-year-old son, Sumit.

The incident occurred at the HRBC Housing Estate in Shibpur, where Nirmala’s parents live. Police said Dhanan, an employee of Hastings Jute Mill at Rishra in Hooghly, had probably entered the building unnoticed and waited on the terrace to confront his estranged wife.

A teenaged girl was apparently the only witness to the murder attempt and suicide. The girl was on the ground when she heard a scream and looked up to see Dhanan grab and push Nirmala around 9.30am, moments after she had reached the terrace to hang some clothes out to dry.

“I saw Dhananda drag Nirmaladi to the edge and push her. She landed on the ground a few feet from the entrance to the building. Dhananda then climbed the parapet and jumped. Both were bleeding from the head, mouth and ears,” recalled the teen.

Nirmala’s mother Tara Das said her daughter had walked out on her husband because he would allegedly torture her.

“She and Dhanan had met when we were in Rishra. We didn’t like him but accepted their marriage. He would torture Nirmala for no apparent reason but we had never imagined he would try to kill her some day,” she cried.

Father Manilal Das is a retired employee of the jute mill where his son-in-law worked. The Das family shifted to Howrah from Rishra after Manilal’s retirement. He now looks after a car rental business owned by his elder son.

Nirmala and son Sumit had left their Rishra home a week ago to live with her parents in their third-floor flat at the Shibpur housing estate.

The additional superintendent of police, Sukesh Kumar Jain, said an attempt-to-murder case had been filed although the accused was dead.