BENGALURU: The Surya City police have arrested seven people, including a minor, in connection with the murder of a 17-year-old girl from Bihar, who was allegedly killed by her relative in Bengaluru. Police said they plan to invoke provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, as the postmortem report confirmed the victim had been sexually assaulted.
The girl’s body was found stuffed inside a blue suitcase and abandoned near the railway tracks in Chandapura on May 21. The victim had arrived in Bengaluru on May 18 with her relative Ashiq Kumar (42). When her family was unable to contact her or Kumar, they filed a missing person complaint at a local police station in Bihar on May 23.
A senior officer told TNIE that the suitcase contained only the body, with no identification or belongings, making identification and investigation more difficult. Photographs of the deceased were circulated nationwide, and two days later, Surya City Police Inspector Sanjeev Kumar Mahajan received information that helped identify the girl.
Call detail records (CDRs) led police to Kumar’s rented house in Bommasandra, but he had already fled to Bihar. The house owner had said that a violent altercation between the girl and Kumar had occurred on May 21, during which windows were broken. Kumar had promised to pay for the damage.
CCTV showed Kumar and three others carrying a suitcase into a cab and later abandoning it near a railway bridge around 11.30 pm. A nine-member police team was sent to Bihar, and seven suspects, including a woman and a minor, were apprehended and brought to Bengaluru.
Kumar, who is married and has two children, had lured the victim to Bengaluru under the pretext of love. He was staying at the house of his friend Mukesh Kumar and his wife Indu Devi, where he took the girl. On May 20, a heated argument broke out after the woman insisted that he marry her. Kumar allegedly strangled her and assaulted her with a rod.