NEW DELHI: The body of an 18-year-old girl was picked up by the police from her funeral pyre and taken to a hospital for post-mortem examination after getting word that she had apparently committed suicide and her corpse had been rushed to a crematorium in a surreptitious manner.
The incident was reported on July 24 at Adarsh Nagar police station area. An informer told police that a girl named Sheetal had committed suicide at her residence in the Lal Bagh area and her family members had taken her to the cremation ground in a hurry.
“Our officers reached the cremation ground and found that the girl’s body had been put on the pyre and all arrangements had been made to burn the body,” an officer said. The body was then taken to BJRM hospital where doctors declared her brought dead, police said, adding the post-mortem examination was conducted at the mortuary of the same hospital.
The doctors told police that they found multiple external injuries. “The cause of death was asphyxia due to manual strangulation (throttling). All the injuries are ante-mortem in nature,” doctors said.
A police officer said in such circumstances, they register a case under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
The police found that her father was involved in killing her. On Monday, the police added Section 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence) to the case and filed a fresh FIR. The accused were identified as Lakhan Mathur, 50, the girl’s father and his friend Raju Lal, 30. The two were arrested.
Lakhan, a cable operator, told police that Sheetal wanted to get married to a boy from a different caste. He had got her engaged to someone against her will. After she raised an objection, they decided to kill her.