new delhi from the most romantic of unions to a ruthless murder over the years their life took a trajectory that neither virender nor aarti foresaw on their fateful meeting in a railway compartment 18 years ago relations between the moti nagar businessman and his wife of 14 years had been strained for some time but when the police announced on saturday that aarti had planned and financed virenders brutal murder he was stabbed 36 times with an ice pick in the early hours of wednesday the news jarred with the details of their early lifeif aarti sachdeva nee arvinder kaur had really offered to pay contract killer mridul dixit rs 10 lakh to bump off her husband as the police claim she must have become a completely different person from the coy schoolgirl who fell for virender sachdeva on their first brush years ago fought off opposition from her family for four years to marry him and then bore him two children police on saturday said aarti 33 had been in an extramarital relationship with a paharganj hotelier sant saran nehra 32 for the last three years the two had thought out the plan to get rid of virender 37 together cops said announcing the arrest of aarti nehra and dixit additional cp west v renganathan said the accused had not hit the victim repeatedly with a hammer as initially reported we found 36 stab wounds on virenders body which were inflicted with an iron poker the death was brutal cops said the murder was planned out at nehras hotelpolice said nehra got married in march this year the same month when aarti lost her only son to an illness nehra and aarti had known each other since childhood as her mothers family lived in his neighbourhood in 2009 the two travelled to paonta sahib in himachal pradesh with their families they probably fell in love on this trip after returning to delhi aarti kept frequenting paharganj she also attended nehras marriage ceremony against the will of her husband and remained there for three days after which he allegedly beat her up said a senior police officerpolice sources also said relations had been strained between the couple they had shifted to moti nagar from tagore garden sachdevas family address as aarti was not on good terms with inlaws virender suspected that aarti was in an extramarital affair which led to quarrels said an officer