CHENNAI: A drunk man strangled his pregnant wife because she refused to make dosa for him. Police are on the lookout for the man.

Police said Srinivasulu, 25, a construction worker, got back to his house in Pallikaranai drunk on Tuesday night and demanded that Geetha, 20, make dosa for him. The woman, who was six-months pregnant with their first child, said she was not feeling too well. “From the woman’s statement before she died, we understand that he kicked her in the abdomen and then strangled,” a policeman said.

Geetha, who was taken to a hospital by neighbours, died on Wednesday morning. Police said the couple hailed from Hyderabad. They had moved to Chennai recently and Srinivasulu found work at a construction site. They had been married for three years.

Police said the man is absconding and that teams are searching for him.

Quoting their neighbours, police said Srinivasulu was a habitual drinker who frequently fought with his wife. On Tuesday night, he came home drunk and tried to drag Geetha into the kitchen to make dosas. “When she said she was tired, he kicked her and strangled her. When she fainted, he fled the scene,” a policeman said.

Hearing the commotion, some neighbours rushed in. Seeing the woman in a dangerous state, some of them shifted her to the Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital for Women and Children, Triplicane. She died on Wednesday morning.

The incident has shocked the neighbourhood. Women in the locality were angry at Srinivasulu and said they would thrash him if he came to the neighbourhood. They offered to depose against him before investigators. Neighbours told police that he always ill-treated his wife and never gave her money to run the house.