A businessman and his alleged woman companion were arrested on the charges of killing his eight-month pregnant wife and portraying the murder as a result of a highway robbery.

Ekramul Haque, 28, owns a shopping complex at his native place of Ghoksadanga in Cooch Behar district and is into real estate business in Bhutan. He was arrested by Alipurduar police on Monday.

The second accused, Rahela Khatun, 25, hails from Madhya Madarihat of Alipurduar district and was arrested on Monday.

The investigators said Haque and his wife Majida Begum, 20, had been returning in his own car from Jaigaon on January 13. “When the car reached near a flyover in Hasimara, 42km from here, Haque got off with an injury on his back. He collapsed on Asian Highway 48 and shouted for help. He told local people that a gang of miscreants had killed his wife, injured him and fled with Rs 70,000,” said a police officer.

Jaigaon police arrived and sent Haque to a private nursing home in Cooch Behar. Begum’s body was found in the car and sent for post-mortem.

“When we were questioning Haque, we felt he was concealing something. This made us check the call list of his cellphone and we found out that he had spoken to Rahela Khatun a number of times on the day of the crime and before,” said the police officer.

The police also came to know that even though Begum was pregnant, Haque had not taken her to doctor even once. “We learnt that this was the first time that he took his wife on a ride in his car,” the officer said.

When Haque was discharged from the nursing home on Monday, the police arrested him. “He then confessed that he was having an affair with Khatun,” said the cop.

Both Haque and Khatun had hatched a plot to eliminate Begum.

“While the couple were returning from Jaigaon, Rahela got into the car at Torsha More, which is 6km from the overbridge in Hasimara. She took out a knife and slit Begum’s throat, leaving her dead on the spot,” the police officer said.

Khatun got off the vehicle near the overbridge and stabbed Haque once on the back to make the incident look like a highway robbery.

“We questioned Khatun and she, too, admitted the crime after some time. We arrested her,” the officer said.

Haque and Khatun were produced in the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court in Alipurduar on Tuesday and remanded in the custody of the police for seven days.

“The investigation was conducted by Kuntal Banerjee, the additional superintendent of police of Jaigaon. We need to interrogate the accused further,” said Alipurduar district police chief Y. Raghuvamshi.