Suspecting an extramarital affair and angered by his wife's big spending habit, a UP man strangled her to death in Muzaffarnagar, media reports said.

While the incident happened a week ago, the man was caught late last night as he was trying to dump her body in a river, said police.

Acting on a tip about two men on their way to dump a body in a river, the police arrested the accused, Arbaaz, on the spot.

However, his friend Shahrukh managed to flee.

The police also recovered the woman's decapitated body in a sack.

The accused confessed to the crime and told police that he married Chahat, 21, eight months back without telling his family.

He said Chahat hailed from Kotdwar in Uttarakhand. They both were living together secretly in a rented house.

However, Arbaaz suspected that Chahat had an extramarital affair and said she was also a big spender. Upset over this, he shared his ordeal with his friend Shahrukh and they both conspired to kill her.

Arbaaz told police that he strangled his wife to death and then slit her throat and thereafter cut her palms from her wrists to make sure the body couldn't be identified. He and Shahrukh then packed the body in a sack and dumped it in a river.

However, when they went back to the river on Wednesday to see if the body had sunk, they found it floating because of the water hyacinth and decided to come back in the night to dump it further but were caught in the act.