T’gana couple held for killing daughter

HYDERABAD: A couple in Telangana’s Jogulamba Gadwal was on Monday arrested for allegedly killing their 20-year-old daughter a day earlier for having a relationship with a man from a lower caste and refusing to terminate her pregnancy, police said on Tuesday.

The girl’s body was sent for a post-mortem on Monday and the couple was arrested after their neighbours tipped off the police about the alleged murder. The couple allegedly smothered their daughter with a pillow and tried to pass off her death as a natural one caused by a heart attack.

“The post-mortem revealed that she died of suffocation. We arrested the couple and produced them before a court, which remanded them in 14-day judicial custody,” said police inspector J Venkateshwarlu. He said the parents allegedly forced the 20-year-old woman to undergo abortion after they got her tested at a hospital, but she refused. “They returned home and locked her up inside a room, fearing that she might elope. In the early hours of Sunday, when she was asleep, the parents smothered her using bedsheets and a pillow,” Venkateshwarlu said. The couple told the neighbours that their daughter died in her sleep due to a heart attack.

Police said the secretary of the local village council grew suspicious and complained to the police, who took the body for postmortem. During interrogation, the parents confessed to the murder. They said they were worried the victim’s relationship with a lower caste man would jeopardise the future of their other two daughters. Police said the 20-year-old woman was a finalyear college student in Kurnool district and had returned following the imposition of the lockdown.