Police on Thursday arrested a man who allegedly shot dead a woman outside her house in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar city after she rejected his marriage proposal, an official said.

There was an exchange of fire between police and the accused, who also suffered bullet injuries, before he was nabbed, he said.

The accused, Deepak Rathore, on Tuesday shot the woman dead outside her house in Basant Vihar Colony when she was starting her scooter and preparing to leave for the court in connection with an old case involving his mother, police said.

Rathore, who fled after the incident, was in love with the woman and pressuring her to marry him, but she rejected him, they said.

Acting on the leads, the police traced the accused near Mandu town on Thursday and cornered him.

The police asked him to surrender, but he tried to escape and fired at them. The police then shot at him in self-defense and arrested the accused, who received bullet injuries on his legs, Dhar district's superintendent of police Manoj Kumar Singh said.

The accused was immediately taken to a nearby hospital and the police seized a pistol and a motorbike from the spot, he said.

In 2020, the deceased woman submitted a complaint under Indian Penal Code section 354 (assault or use of criminal force to any woman, intending to outrage her modesty) against Rathore. In 2021, she lodged another complaint against him for attacking her, the official said.

Rathore lodged a complaint of abetment of suicide against the woman and her family members after his mother committed suicide by consuming poison.

The accused had claimed his mother took her life as the woman refused to marry him and her kin supported her, police said.

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