BHOPAL: In a suspected case of honour killing, a Class 12 student tribal girl was allegedly killed by her father and two relatives over her love affair with an economically weak youth of their community in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh. Three men, including her father and two relatives, have been arrested.
The Class XII student girl, identified as Roshni, was found murdered and her face disfigured in Mandav police station area of Dhar district on February 7. Despite all attempts, including examining 361 missing person complaints and 12 kidnapping cases registered at police stations in various districts of Indore and Ujjain divisions on or before the recovery of girl’s body, the Dhar district police couldn’t ascertain the identity of the murdered girl.
“We also gathered information from the school education department in Dhar and adjoining districts of Indore and Ujjain division, but couldn’t get any clinching evidence,” Dhar district police superintendent Aditya Pratap Singh said on Sunday.
Subsequently, the investigation team led by additional SP (ASP-Dhar) Devendra Patidar zeroed on figuring out the car in which the girl was seen at a petrol pump and toll booth in Dhar district, a day before she was found brutally murdered.
After scanning the CCTV footages in which the police analysed visuals of over 460 vehicles that had either crossed a toll booth in Dhar’s Khalghat area or else were seen on the nearby petrol pump, the cops finally managed to track the concerned car in Indore.
“The quizzing of the car owner revealed that the car had been taken by his son’s friend Mukesh and Mukesh’s relative Prithvi for some important work. Subsequently, we managed to ascertain the murdered girl’s identity and tracked his father Ishwar Patel,” said Singh.
According to sources connected with the investigation, Ishwar’s continued quizzing led to the murder plot being busted. It came to the fore that Roshni, who was eldest among three sisters, had an affair with a youth, who hailed from her own tribal community but wasn’t well off like Roshni’s family.
Suspecting the love affair and also fearing that his daughter might elope with the youth, Roshni’s father Ishwar along with his close relative Mukesh and Mukesh’s relative Prithvi planned the killing.
On February 6, Roshni and her cousin sister were picked up from school by Mukesh on the pretext of going tourist hotspot Mandu. On the way back from Mandu, while Roshni’s cousin Pinky was first dropped at her house, Roshni was later taken for being dropped at her granny’s house, where she lived.
But instead of dropping Roshni home, Mukesh and Prithvi administered her pesticide forcefully and locked her in the boot of the car. Battling for life Roshni kept crying for help from inside the locked boot of the car, after which the duo drove her to Randgaon village. Mukesh and Prithvi subsequently slit Roshni’s throat and then disfigured her face with some heavy object to conceal her identity and destroy evidence of the crime.
“All three accused, including the teenage girl’s father Ishwar and his two relatives Mukhesh and Prithvi, have been arrested and booked for murder, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence,” the SP Dhar said.