Patti (Punjab), April 27 (IANS) The Punjab Police Monday arrested three people, including a registered medical practitioner (RMP), after he chopped off the hands of his newly wedded wife and her cousin brother on the suspicion that they were having an affair in this border-area town of Punjab.
Gursahib Singh was arrested by the police along with his two other relatives after all three first chopped off a hand of his wife’s cousin Manpreet Singh and later did the same to Gursahib Singh’s wife Kulbir Kaur.

A big knife was used to chop off the hands. The trio then put the chopped limbs in a gunny bag and dumped them in a garbage bin here.

Superintendent of Police M.S. Sidhu confirmed the arrest of the trio.

“Initial investigations have revealed that the illicit relations angle was the cause for carrying out this crime. Further investigations are being done,” Sidhu added.

Gursahib Singh, who was drunk at the time of the incident, called Manpreet Singh to a tubewell near his house late Sunday night. He, with the help of two other relatives, got Manpreet Singh drunk and then caught hold of him and chopped off his hand.

Gursahib Singh then went to his home and chopped off the right hand of his wife.

The couple had been married just six months back and the wife had not even removed her “choora” (wedding bangles) from her wrists.

After the incident came to light, the police recovered the chopped hands from the garbage bin but doctors here said that these could not be stitched back.

“The limbs were recovered after over 12 hours. Now they cannot be put back. Had they been recovered within the first six hours of the incident, we could have saved the hands,” Sukhwinder Singh, a doctor here, said.

Patti is situated 40 km from Amritsar.