A 38-year-old man was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly strangling his 14-year-old stepdaughter to death and dumping her body in a forested area of Greater Noida, police said on Wednesday, adding that allegations that he had previously sexually assaulted the minor girl surfaced during a preliminary investigation.
Police said the incident took place on April 20 allegedly after the man, enraged that the minor girl had accused him the sexual abuse, took her to an under-construction house, where he strangled her with a rope. He then packed her body in a sack, drove it 15 km away, and dumped the body in some bushes near the Yamuna Pushta Road, said a senior police officer aware of the investigation.
The accused then filed a missing persons complaint at the Jewar police station claiming that his “stepdaughter had gone missing after leaving home to buy milk from a nearby shop”.
Police registered a case under section 137(2) (kidnapping) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and launched a probe into her disappearance. “During investigation, however, the man was captured on a CCTV camera carrying a sack,” the officer quoted above said. When he was questioned, the accused then revealed the truth.
The man was arrested from Greater Noida on Tuesday after the decomposing body was recovered. A post-mortem examination was conducted the same day, officials said. It confirmed strangulation.
Further investigation revealed that the teenager had been staying at her grandmother’s home in Delhi for the past two months and had revealed to her that the man had sexually assaulted her.
“Due to the man’s intention, the girl refused to live with the man and stayed from February to April 17 at her grandmother’s house. On April 17, around 2 am, her mother brought her home and, enraged over the minor’s revelation, the suspect killed her on April 20,” said the officer quoted above, citing family members.
However, a probe is still on to verify this allegation. “The suspect was booked on charges of 103 (murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence) of BNS and sent to jail,” said Sanjay Kumar Singh, station house officer, Jewar police station.
According to the police, the girl resided with her parents and three younger brothers in a village in Jewar.