Wilton murder-accused describes slashing of wife's throat as a tragic accident

The accused man cried and wiped his eyes in the witness box, saying it was a tragic accident where she picked up the knife to tell him to get out of her bedroom, that he took it, she grabbed his hand and the slashing of her own throat happened in a struggle.

“She took the knife from the table, I think, I am not sure, and told me to go back. The knife was the one I purchased two days back. My immediate reaction was to take the knife from her.

“I took the knife. We had a struggle. The knife was in my hand. And falling down, her throat got cut. There was blood everywhere. Such a shock for me. I don’t know what to do,” Regin Rajan told the judge and jury at the Central Criminal Court in Cork on Wednesday afternoon.

Senior counsel Brian McInerney asked his client: “Did you intend to stab your wife?” The man who denies murder replied: “No, never.” 

Asked: “Did you intend to kill your wife?” he replied: “No, never.” Asked how he felt when his wife’s throat was cut, Regin Rajan replied: “My initial reaction was, I don’t know what to do, to be frank. I just tried to stop the blood from the neck. I don’t know.

“My mind was blank. I cannot think straight. I don’t know.” 

He accepted he told his friend and the 999 call taker and the police that evening that he stabbed his wife.

“I never had any intention to stab her… I never thought my wife was going to hide my passport [which he wanted in order to travel back to India] and tells me I can go back to India when she comes back from Dublin. I never had an intention to harm her in any way, not even to give her a slap.

“To get the passport back I went into the room, just my passport, nothing else. I wish I can turn back the clock. I wish she is alive,” he said and cried.

He claimed when he entered his wife’s room that day she was dressed only in a T-shirt and was holding her phone in her hand and then picked up the knife and told him to get out.

Prosecution senior counsel Seán Gillane cross-examined the accused man, 43-year-old Regin Parithapara Rajan, who denies the single charge of murdering his wife, 38-year-old Deepa Paruthiyezhuth Dinamani at their home at Cardinal Court, Wilton, Cork, on July 14. 2023.

“When your wife began to die because of the blood she was losing and to drown from the blood she was swallowing, what did you do to help her?” Mr Gillane asked, and he replied: “I was just trying with my hand to stop the blood.” 

Mr Gillane said: “You did not pick up the phone to get help.” Mr Rajan said: “My mind was blank. I was shocked.” 

“You wrapped her in the duvet — why?” Mr Gillane asked and the accused replied: “Just to protect her dignity.” 

Mr Gillane commented: “The last thing in the world you cared about was her dignity.” The accused said: “I covered her to protect her dignity. I always loved her.” 

Mr Gillane asked the accused to explain how Deepa was slashed from earlobe to midpoint on her neck in a single swiping action. 

He replied: “She was really mad. She would do anything to get the knife from me. It just happened in a fraction of a second… She fell to the bed, she pulled my hand, it happened during the fall.” 

Mr Gillane said it seemed odd the accused was dressed only in his boxer shorts and T-shirt and the accused said that was how he dressed at home. Mr Gillane suggested the accused was saying that to explain why his boxers were soaked in his wife’s blood.

Asked what he did after his wife was fatally injured, he said: “I cannot recall. I was shocked. My mind was blank.” He said he could not say what time it happened or how long he was in the room afterwards.

Mr Gillane asked how the deceased suffered a wound in her left forearm and he said: “Maybe it was when I was trying to get the knife from her in the struggle… She attacked me, I did not attack her.” 

He did not know how the knife got into the bedroom in the first place. He said he bought it two days earlier because Deepa told him to buy the knife for preparing rockfish. Mr Gillane wondered if it was another tragedy in the life of Deepa that she asked for the purchase of a knife that ultimately brought her life to an end.

Asked why he had Google searches on prison conditions in Ireland, he replied he had been watching a Netflix programme on prisons around the world and was interested in what the conditions were in Ireland.

Mr Gillane asked if the last text on Deepa’s phone, the word ‘Yups’ was texted by the accused on her phone as he had used this word 130 times on his own phone but she never once used the word. 

“As she was dying in her bed or already dead you are using her phone to communicate with Jay.” He replied a number of times as the question was repeated: “I don’t know.” 

Jay is the man the deceased met on a dating website, who was exchanging WhatsApp texts with Deepa in the weeks before her death.

Mr Gillane said on his arrest the accused had his own phone and his wife’s phone in his pockets.

Mr Gillane put it to the accused the words he spoke to a garda at the scene that day: “I just stabbed her, I stabbed her with the knife in the throat,” that she was cheating on him, that he could not tolerate it, and he never said at that time anything about an accident. 

He said that following his arrest he thought the police would beat and torture him, adding: “I was speaking with my unconscious mind.” 

Referring to the note on a table in the bedroom asking for forgiveness for what he had done, Mr Gillane asked: “Is that your handwriting?” the accused replied: “I never had bad handwriting like that.” 

Concluding, Mr Gillane said: “I am going to put it to you squarely — this account of an attack on you by the deceased is wrong, it is untrue, it is a contrivance by you to avoid responsibility for what you did and well knew what you did. 

"You purchased the knife. You researched knives. You removed your child from the house. You cut your wife’s throat in a single swiping movement which brought her life to an end and what you said today is untrue.” The accused disagreed.

A former employer, Rahul Sobti, said by video link from India  the accused as an employee was very sincere, highly skilled and hardworking.

The trial continues.