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Indian dentist convicted of killing husband

C K Arora in Washington

Alpna Patel, a 28-year-old dentist, was convicted of fatally stabbing her husband Viresh Patel (26), also a doctor, in Baltimore, near Washington. Sentencing is set for October 24.

On Monday, a jury found the dentist of Indian origin, whose parents live in Canada, guilty of slaughtering her husband, meaning they believed that she killed Viresh in an emotion of rage, The Washington Post reported.

The verdict came on the third day of deliberations, during which a juror had clung steadfastly to the belief that Alpna was not guilty of any crime. Juror Geraldine Brunett said in an interview to the daily after the verdict that she thought Viresh was the aggressor and that he was killed accidentally, as Alpna claimed. But she said she ultimately decided to convict her after 11 fellow jurors more clearly explained the charges.

The daily recalled that Viresh died in March 1999, after his wife of 10 months had made a surprise visit to Baltimore, where he was during a surgical residency. After their arranged marriage, Alpna had been living with her in-laws near Buffalo and practising dentistry at a hospital there.

She told the jury that her father-in-law ruled every aspect of the couple's lives, including where she would live, whether she could go out with friends and even whether they could spend their wedding night together.

Alpna testified that she flew from Buffalo to Baltimore to confront her husband with a list of problems, most of which centred around her father-in-law, with the hope of trying to save their marriage. But Viresh had worked an overnight shift at Union Memorial hospital that day and fell sleep while she was reading the list.

Enraged, Alpna grabbed a kitchen knife and cut her husband six times, one of them a fatal three-inch gash through the carotid artery.

UNI

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