A woman doctor died by suicide at her home in Punjab's Jalandhar, with her family blaming her estranged husband of mental and physical assault.
Dr Meenakshi, who was living separately from her husband - Dr Piyush, also a doctor and the owner of National Eye Hospital in Jalandhar - was found hanging in her room on Wednesday. All the doors of the house were locked from the inside, forcing the cops to break open the glass windows to enter the house.
The woman and her husband got married in October 2018. After the wedding, she bought a Thar and was paying the installments from her salary.
According to Dr Meenakshi's family, her husband had an extramarital affair with a nurse from his hospital - which their daughter had found through CCTV footage after she became suspicious. Following this, Piyush used to beat her up, Meenakshi's mother said. Piyush would also often call up his wife's mother after the assault and tell her: 'I beat Meenakshi, I made a mistake', her mother claimed.
The woman had been living alone since July 2025 as she was fed up of her husband's physical assault, her family said.
She was also allegedly seeking a divorce, but her father had told her to wait for a while before they could go to court.
The doctor was reportedly planning to buy her own house this month. When she went to the bank a few days ago for the same, she discovered that a loan of Rs 2.5 crore was already running under her name - some for a car and the rest for his hospital - without her signature on the documents, her family claimed.
"We don't know whether it was a suicide or murder. Only a post-mortem will reveal the cause," she said.
A case has been registered based on the woman's family's allegations, officials said.
Piyush's phone is currently switched off, and he has not yet been questioned, they added.
