Man rapes, kills daughter for inter-caste marriage in MP

INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE WOMAN’S FATHER WAS UPSET OVER HER INTERCASTE MARRIAGE

BHOPAL: A 55-year-old man in Bhopal was arrested for allegedly raping and killing his 25-year-old daughter as she had married a man belonging to another caste, police said on Tuesday.

The woman’s 23-year-old brother was also arrested for assisting his father in the crime, they added.

The incident took place on October 5 but the matter came to light only on Sunday when police recovered the body of the woman from a forest near Ratibad area after a forest guard alerted them. The body of the woman’s eight-monthold son, who allegedly died of pneumonia, was also recovered from the spot, police said.

Providing further details, Bhopal city superintendent of police (CSP) Umesh Tiwari said investigation revealed that the woman’s father was upset over her inter-caste marriage.

“During the course of interrogation, we learnt that the woman, a resident of Shujalpur in Shajapur district, had gone to her elder sister’s house in Bhopal on October 20 for Diwali as her husband was away in Raipur for work,” he said. However, the woman’s son died of pneumonia. As she did not want to share the news with her husband, her elder sister called her father and brother, who live in Sehore in the neighbouring district, the CSP said.

“The father, who had broken all ties with his daughter after her marriage, came and asked her to bury the infant’s body in the forest. The woman, her father and brother went to a forest where the father asked his son to guard their bike and took his daughter inside. He then raped and strangled her to death,” Tiwari said. The next day, the father and son informed the elder daughter that the woman was murdered.

However, when police found the woman’s body, her condition and clothes suggested that she was raped before being murdered, Tiwari said. A postmortem report on Monday confirmed the same, he added.

Upon interrogation, the father and son confessed to the crime. “During interrogation, the father said he was looking for a chance to kill his daughter and when she contacted him, he couldn’t control his anger,” Tiwari said.

While the father was booked under section 302 (murder) and 376 (rape) of Indian Penal Code (IPC), his son was booked for murder.