DUBAI // A spurned lover who was dumped by his girlfriend despite converting to Islam so he could marry her drank half a litre of pesticide and tried to stab her to death.
JK, 32, a building guard from India, was found trying to cradle NB, 40, a Sri Lankan maid, in his arms as she bled profusely from the wounds he had inflicted.
The Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance yesterday sentenced him to three years in jail for the attempted murder, which took place at the Sharaf El Din residential building in Al Nahda on July 5 last year.
An investigating officer, Major JS, 40 from Dubai Police, told the court that JK had fallen in love with the maid in 2008 and that the pair had been involved in a relationship.
"He said that he changed his religion from Hinduism to Islam so he could marry her but a few months back she dumped him and would not explain why," said the officer.
On the day of the attack JK took a knife and a bottle filled with pesticide and headed to the apartment where NB worked.
He asked the maid to explain why she had dumped him but she did not respond. JK then drank the poison and asked a second time but she again refused to answer. He then stabbed her before trying to take her into his arms.
The pair were discovered by AM, 38, an American housewife who lived in the building. Earlier that day, AM had asked the maid - who worked for her mother, another resident of the building - to help with her daughter's birthday party.
"At approximately midnight my mother came to the apartment and told me to come to her floor as a problem happened, I saw the man on the floor holding NB's hands and her pushing him away to get loose as she was bleeding profusely," she said.
"I told him to let go of her and said I would call the cops. He kept repeating: 'Call them, call them to me before I let go'," she said.
During a police interrogation, JK is said to have shouted: 'Why I be poison and she be life', meaning, the court heard, 'why should I die and let her live'.
The maid said JK had repeatedly threatened her after she broke off their relationship. "He would come and tell me he would kill me whenever I left the building to go to the supermarket," she said.
JK has also been charged at the Dubai Court of Misdemeanours with consensual sex and attempted suicide, and NB is being charged with consensual sex.
amustafa@thenational.ae