A man from Karnataka’s Gadag brutally attacked his wife and left her battling for life in a hospital, days before their divorce petition hearing was to come up in a court.Police said that the inter-religious marriage of the couple had hit a rough patch when Apoorva Puranik alias Arfa Bano had learnt about the first marriage of her husband Ijiaz. Apoorva, who was studying MBA in Hubli, fell in love with Ijaz who was an auto driver in the area where she lived. The couple got married in 2018, despite opposition from the girl’s family. Apoorva changed her name to Arfa Bano after the wedding. The couple has a two-year-old child. Around six months ago, Apoorva learnt about Ijaz’s first marriage. According to police, this led to several heated arguments between the two. Heartbroken, Apoorva applied for a divorce and the petition was to come up for a hearing on Friday. But the estranged husband attacked Apoorva on Wednesday in Gadag, assaulted her 23 times with a lethal weapon. She is now battling for her life at KIMS hospital in Hubli. The police have arrested Ijaz. Apoorva’s mother Ashwin said her daughter was studying in Hubli and when she and Ijaz got their marriage registered. “He would assault her often. We opposed the marriage but thought they will live happily. We didn’t know about his first marriage. When she got to know, she filed for a divorce. He had converted our daughter before marriage and changed her name to Arfa. He wanted her to not ask for a divorce, he would ask her to live the way he wanted,” said.Meanwhile several right-wing groups and chief of Sri Ram Sene, Pramod Muthalik, have called it a case of Love-Jihad. “This is the latest example of Love-Jihad. Marrying innocent Hindu women and then torturing or converting them is happening everywhere. We welcome the prompt action of the police to arrest him. But they have booked him under not so stringent sections. If he comes out of jail, we will thrash him. We demand stringent sections to be slapped against the culprit,” Muthalik said. Read all minute-by-minute news updates for Uttar Pradesh election results 2022, Punjab election results 2022, Uttarakhand election results 2022, Manipur election results 2022, and Goa election results 2022.Click here for seat-wise LIVE result updates.