LUCKNOW: Imagine a man continuing to live with his wife despite suspecting her to have given birth to a child as a result of an extramarital relationship. When the child grows up, he vents his anger on the girl.
As if that were not enough, even the man’s son, Gaurav, taunts the girl about being an illegitimate child and even asks his friend to sleep with her.
The girl is ignored and Gaurav is named the sole inheritor of the family’s wealth.
This is the story of 25-year-old Priyanka Singh, who was crowned Miss Meerut in 2005. Priyanka and her friend Anju were arrested on Monday on charges of murdering her aged parents. On Tuesday, the two were remanded in judicial custody for 14 days by a Meerut court.
The former beauty queen had allegedly, in a fit of rage on November 10, suffocated her 65-year-old mother, Santosh, to death and stabbed her father Premvir Singh (70), when he tried to intervene.
Anju was reportedly with her all this while.
“We cannot imagine the girl revolting against her family like this. She must have really hated them,” said Captain Bhagwan Dass Gupta, one of the organizers of the Miss Meerut contest held by the Mishika Group. For the young girl, winning the Miss Meerut pageant was like a passport to a new world, free from the frequent taunts. She seized the chance. Priyanka began searching for a new place to live in Amroha with the help of Anju. Here Anju’s cousin Ajendra tried to molest her. Priyanka faced a similar situation in Noida while hunting for a job, police said.
“It seems that the murder was an impulsive action,” Dr Aarti Anand, a clinical psychologist at Sir Gangaram Hospital, said over phone.
Priyanka was a student of South Delhi Polytechnic for Women, a move opposed by her parents.
"She joined the two years’ interior designing course in 2007. But, by April 2008, she dropped out of the course," vice-principal A M Bannerjee was quoted as saying. Priyanka had reportedly approached the National Commission for Women which had sent a notice to the state police for not paying heed to her complaints regarding exploitation at home. However, Additional Director General (Law and Order, Crime) Brijlal feigned ignorance about any such notice.