It was around 6.15 pm on August 23, Mary recalls, that her son came down from the first floor of their residence at KR Puram in Bengaluru, and uttered those fateful words to her. “I killed Nancy. I’m going to the police station,” John Supreet told her, before leaving the house. A stunned Mary immediately rushed to the aid of Nancy Flora, her daughter-in-law, and took her to the hospital, but the doctors declared her brought dead. According to Mary, her son had been violent towards his wife for several years. However, the next day, Nancy’s death was reported as a murder by a husband who suspected his wife of having an affair. This because the police decided to focus on ‘suspicion of extramarital affair’ as the reason for the murder rather than take into account the years of abuse suffered by Nancy.
According to initial police reports, Supreet allegedly murdered his 32-year-old wife Nancy because he suspected her of having an affair. The families of both the victim and the accused though have a different story to tell — one of brutal domestic violence that spanned years.
Nancy and Supreet got married around 10 years ago, and Nancy faced abuse from Supreet ever since, according to Nancy’s counsellor. The couple have two children aged 11 and eight. Nancy and Supreet’s parents say they learnt about the violence around 2018. “That was when Supreet began using drugs and started growing increasingly suspicious of Nancy’s fidelity,” says Mary.
His suspicions, however, were baseless, she says. “Nancy never even stepped out of the house, other than to go grocery shopping or to pick up the kids from school. It was Nancy who always looked after us. Supreet, on the other hand, would even abuse my husband and me,” Mary says.
Francis Xavier, Nancy’s father, alleges that Supreet used to look after a business owned by his parents. However, he abandoned it after he began doing drugs, besides developing a drinking habit, alleges Francis. “Supreet was also angry with Nancy because his parents were more supportive of her than of him. Both families, on several occasions, tried to admit him to a rehabilitation centre to address his drug problem. But all our efforts were in vain,” he adds.
In the wake of the domestic abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband, Nancy had been undergoing online counselling with a Bengaluru NGO since 2020. An activist at the NGO says that Nancy believed Supreet was using drugs and had a confrontation with him two weeks before the murder. The activist points to bias in the murder investigation, alleging that the police took statements only from certain neighbours, all witnesses arranged by Supreet, instead of those who knew what had actually happened.
Girish S, Deputy Commissioner of Police for Whitefield, says the investigation team was yet to find any evidence to prove Surpreet’s alleged substance abuse or peddling. “This is a straight case of murder — the husband killed his wife because he had suspicions that she was having an extramarital affair,” he says.
“Domestic violence is not seen as a crime but an issue to counsel the women to adjust and the man is told to be more charitable to the wife,” says Brinda Adige, a women and child rights activist with Global Concerns India. “Police have more often focused both the FIR and charge sheet with the prejudiced angle of extra-marital affair (as stated by the alleged accused); instead of investigating the actual facts of domestic violence or/and dowry harassment. This is problematic, even as policies and laws claim to ‘protect women’, harp on safety of women and justice to victims of gender based violence,” she further explains, adding that it is the patriarchal mindset of the law enforcers that hampers the investigation of crime due to their gendered outlook to crimes against women.