Kannauj hate crime: Woman’s body found after 5 months

KANPUR: Kannauj police in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday found the body of a 22-year-old woman, five months after she disappeared, and arrested her uncle and another man on suspicion of murdering her.

The body of Rekha Yadav had been buried in a dry waterbody in the jungle, the police said.

Station house officer of Thatiya village, Vijay Bahadur Verma, said the woman was suspected to have been strangled to death by her uncle Awdhesh Yadav and another relative, identified as Girish, because she wanted to marry a person of her choice instead of the man they wanted her to wed.

After killing her, they buried the body in a dried canal in a forest area that recently filled up with rainwater and had to be drained to recover the body, Verma said.

The Allahabad high court had asked the police to trace the woman after the man she wanted to marry, Amit Yadav, approached the court in early August following her disappearance in May.

According to local residents, Rekha had been insistent on marrying Amit Yadav although her family had arranged her marriage with someone else. In April, she left her house with the intent of marrying Amit Yadav, but returned home later .

Their families met at the police station, but Rekha remained firm on marrying Amit Yadav. Her uncle assured the police that the two families would work out a solution and took the woman home on May 4.

“Rekha just disappeared after that,” Amit Yadav said on Thursday, adding that he confronted her uncle in July about her whereabouts; Awdesh accused him of kidnapping her instead. “I approached the high court for a direction to the police to trace her,”he said.

Police became active on the high court’s directive. Additional superintendent of police Vinod Kumar said many other relatives were involved in the murder and would also be charged soon with the crime.