Woman SWAT commando dies five days after assault by husband

A 27-year-old Delhi Police woman constable, posted as a commando in the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit of the Special Cell, died on Tuesday at a private hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, five days after her husband allegedly attacked her with a metal dumbbell and smashed her head against a door frame at their home in Dwarka Mor in southwest Delhi, senior police officers said on Wednesday.

After allegedly assaulting his wife, Kajal, following an altercation over domestic issues and dowry demands, the accused, identified as Ankur Chaudhary (28), called Kajal’s brother, Nikhil, a Delhi Police constable, and told him that he had killed his sister, police said, citing Nikhil’s statement.

Police said the couple had a love marriage in November 2023 and have a one-and-a-half-year-old son.

Kajal suffered severe head injuries and was declared brain dead by doctors at a private hospital near Dwarka, where she was admitted by her husband on Thursday night (January 22) after the alleged assault. On January 25, she was shifted to a private hospital in Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad, where she succumbed to her injuries around 6 am on Tuesday (January 27), the officers said.

“We registered a case of attempt to murder and arrested the commando’s husband, Ankur Chaudhary, the same night the crime was committed. He was produced before a Delhi court and sent to judicial custody. Now that the commando has died, the case has been converted from attempt to murder to murder,” said special commissioner of police (law and order, zone-2) Madhup Tiwari.

Originally from Ganaur in Haryana, Kajal joined the Delhi Police as a constable in 2022 and underwent commando training before being posted to the SWAT unit of the Special Cell. Her brother, Nikhil, is posted as a constable in the office of the assistant commissioner of police (ACP), Parliament Street, said a senior police officer aware of the case.

Speaking to HT over the phone, Nikhil said his sister was pursuing her graduation at a college in Haryana’s Panipat, where she met Chaudhary and they fell in love.

“After courting for nearly four years and securing government jobs — Kajal in the Delhi Police and Chaudhary in the Ministry of Defence as a clerk — they tied the knot in November 2023. The couple later bought a flat in Vinod Nagar near Dwarka Mor and moved there. Their toddler son was at his maternal grandparents’ house when his mother was attacked,” he said.

Nikhil said that around 10pm on January 10, Chaudhary called him and said his sister was quarrelling with him.

“My sister took the phone and tried to explain what had happened. Chaudhary got offended by some remarks she made. He snatched the phone and asked me to record the conversation as evidence, saying he was going to kill my sister. I then heard her screaming before the call got disconnected,” Nikhil said.

“About five minutes later, Chaudhary called again and told me that he had killed my sister and that I should come to Delhi to claim her body. When I reached Delhi around midnight, his family had already arrived and he had admitted my sister to a nearby private hospital, where doctors declared her brain dead,” he added.

Police said Kajal’s family has alleged that Chaudhary had been harassing her for dowry in the form of money and a car.