Police are looking for a Kampong Cham man who had doused his wife with gasoline and set her alight after the couple had an argument about the man’s alcoholism on Sunday, district police said yesterday.

The suspect, Yon Sna, 31, was drinking at home in Batheay district when his wife, Lay Roeung, 30, returned home from selling mangoes, deputy district police chief Pok Navy said.

The couple had an argument about Sna’s habitual drinking, and Roeung threatened to leave him, said Navy. While Roeung was packing her clothes to depart for her mother’s house, Sna allegedly pushed her onto the bed, doused her with gasoline and set her ablaze

Sna then fled the scene on his motorbike, Navy added.

To escape, Roeung had to strip off her burning clothes before she could run to her mother’s home to seek help. According to her, some 200,000 riel that she had earned from selling mangoes went up in flames.

This was the not the first case of abuse, she said.

“I thought about divorcing him thrice before because he sometimes knocks me out. But I thought about the [three] small kids we have,” said Roeung, who is recovering at Preah Kossamak Hospital in Phnom Penh.

Navy told the Post that it is believed that the suspect had fled into the forest near the village to evade capture.