An eight-year-old girl was allegedly killed by her father as she wanted to be with her grandparents.
The incident took place in Byatarayanapura on Mysore road on Thursday night, the police said.
The victim was identified as Neha Singh, a Class 2 student of a private school in Girinagar. The girl was continuously attacked by her father Satyanarayana (38) with a rolling pin for two days, and even broke her left arm.
The police said the incident came to light on Thursday midnight when the police received an anonymous call. They were informed that a minor girl was murdered after being sexually assaulted in a house. The police rushed to the spot and found the girl dead and took Satyanarayana into custody after he confessed to the crime. However, there was no sexual assault on the girl.
Satyanarayana runs Classic Molt, a plastic moulding factory in Timberyard Layout. He married Asha Singh, who allegedly committed suicide over dowry harassment in 2006 when Neha was 10 months old. He was arrested in this connection.
After this incident, Neha stayed with her grandparents in Shimoga for about seven years. When he came out of jail, Satyanarayana got married to Teju Singh, a native of Bhadravati.
In May, Satyanarayana went to Shimoga with his relatives and brought Neha back home along with her valuables after convincing her grandparents. He assured them that he would take care of her, citing their age as a factor. By then, Neha had completed Class one.
A few days ago, he told the grandparents that Neha was studying in Class two in a private school. Her grandfather Raghunath Singh came to the city to confirm it. However, he returned to Shimoga as he could not find Satyanarayana’s address.
Neha was very attached to her grandparents and talked about them. Unable to bear this and angry with Neha’s mother for indirectly sending him to jail by committing suicide, Satyanarayana started to physically assault the child frequently. He even thrashed his second wife Teju whenever she tried to intervene.
Over the last week, a teary-eyed Neha started throwing tantrums, demanding to be sent back to Shimoga. An angry Satyanarayana on Wednesday locked her up in a room and beat her.
After two days of assault, Neha fell ill but was not taken to a hospital. On Thursday evening, Satyanarayana found her dead and left her body on the bed.
When the police questioned him, he tried to shift blame and misguide them by claiming that the girl was attacked by someone else when she was fetching milk from a nearby shop. “I came to know about her death when I was performing a ritual in a temple,” he told the police.
The Byatarayanapura police also arrested Satyanarayana’s mother Padma Bai (63), who allegedly encouraged him to beat the girl. Further investigations are on.