TUMAKURU: A wedding broker allegedly murdered his teenage daughter and buried her along a rivulet in Nimbemaradahalli village in Sira taluk of Tumakuru district. The chilling murder took place on April 16 and came to light on Sunday.
Police arrested Thimmarayappa on charges of murdering his daughter Meghana (17). The body will be exhumed on Monday under the supervision of a taluk magistrate.
The victim, a second-year PU student, was engaged to her mother’s relative’s son, and the marriage was to be arranged after she turned 18 years old. The bridegroom’s family had already made arrangements and bought a wedding sari and gold ‘mangalsutra’ for Meghana, according to police.
Thimmarayappa and wife Nirmala had a dispute over the wedding. The accused had been opposing the proposal that resulted in frequent quarrels at home over the past few months.
After one such quarrel, Meghana went missing on April 16. Nirmala, a daily wage worker, returned home in the evening and called her, and found her mobile phone was switched off. She turned suspicious and lodged a missing complaint with Kallambella police.
After investigation, police arrested the father, who confessed to the crime during interrogation. On that fateful day, he had taken Meghana to an open well in a farm and pushed her into it. Even as she was begging for help to come up, he hit her with stones and ensured that she died. Later, he retrieved the body from the well and buried it by a rivulet. Interestingly, he had accompanied Nirmala to the police station to lodge a missing complaint.
The couple have a son younger than Meghana. Kallambella police have taken up further investigation.
Cellphone helped cops crack murder
After Nirmala lodged a complaint, police filed an FIR as a kidnap case as the girl was a minor. Her mobile phone call details were traced, following which police grew suspicious of Thimmarayappa.
The accused had kept his daughter’s mobile phone after getting the SIM card removed. He had visited a local mobile phone sale and repair shop, which was confirmed by CCTV footage. When police asked him to appear for an inquiry, he avoided them and disappeared from the village. Following this, police filed a missing FIR and started tracing him.
He went to pilgrimage centres like Tirupati and Dharmasthala before being caught by police.