A lovelorn spinster murdered her father with active help from her lover in Sambhal while in Lakhimpur Kheri, a man accused his parents of brutally killing his wife and demanded capital punishment for them.
In Sambhal, Preeti of Mutaine village was having an affair with a youth, Dharmendra, from Patise village of Budaun but their liaison was strongly opposed by her father, Harpal Singh. On July 19, Harpal Singh went to look after his fields and his body was later found hanging from a tree there. The deceased’s family members and his daughter did not file a police complaint claiming that the farmer had committed suicide.
But after the post-mortem report revealed that the man was hit with an iron rod on the head that caused his death, the police started investigating the death. After getting substantial evidence, the police detained Priti and her boyfriend Dharmendra from Islamnagar of Budaun on Wednesday.
They were subjected to intense grilling during which they broke down and reportedly confessed their role in killing Harpal Singh.
An accomplice of the perpetrators was still absconding and the police were making efforts to track him and drop the net on him.
Elsewhere in Lakhimpur, Narendra Verma (31) accused his parents of hatching a conspiracy along with other family members and beheading his wife, Arundhati Verma.
Verma is an alumnus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences and currently works as a consultant in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and MSME Export department in the UP government. Verma now wants police to make it a case of rarest of rare crime that could ensure death sentence to the perpetrators.
Verma claimed that he got married to his girlfriend in May, 2013 and since then his parents started disliking them as the girl was not of their choice and they wanted him to marry someone of their choice.
“I left the village with my wife and stayed in different cities like Delhi and Lucknow depending on my work. Since I had minimal interaction with my parents, the differences never escalated. But they always expressed their dislike towards my wife whenever they got the opportunity,” he said.
Verma further said that he could sense the uneasiness and extreme hatred of his parents towards his wife but he had never thought that they would become so cruel that they would butcher her to death.
“They planned her murder but committed it in such a way that it looked like an altercation leading to sudden provocation for the crime. On July 10, when I went for a morning walk, my mother scuffled with my wife and my father brought a sharp axe and struck my wife on her neck, partially severing it from the torso. At the same time, my brother too attacked her with a chopper, killing her in the process. The post-mortem confirmed that she had been murdered in the most heinous manner. The police have registered an FIR and arrested my parents but I want that the killing be treated as the rarest of rare case and the accused be hanged to death,” he said.
Meanwhile in Agra, the police arrested two persons and claimed to have worked out the mysterious killing of a woman and her three children in Kucha Sadhuram area recently.
The prime accused is a cousin of the woman and he killed her with the help of his two associates after the victim publicly humiliated him for not returning money that he had borrowed from her.
According to the police, Rekha had lent Rs 2 lakh to her cousin, Santosh Rathore, about two years back but Santosh, failed to repay the money on time. Rekha had been humiliating him in public for not returning her money. This prompted Santosh to hatch a conspiracy with his associates and seek revenge. Also, Santosh knew that somebody had given Rs 4 lakh to Rekha and hence thought that after murdering her, he could make away with the money.
IG (Agra) Naveen Arora stated that Rathore and his two associates -- Veeru Valmiki and Anshul Rathore -- visited Rekha at her residence on the afternoon of July 21. They drugged Rekha and her children by mixing sedatives in their tea before slitting their throats with knives. Around 4:15 pm, the accused fled with cash, a laptop, a mobile phone, a tablet and jewellery from the house.
During investigation, the police scanned CCTV footage and technical surveillance led the investigators to zero in on the accused. Subsequently, Santosh and Veeru were arrested and efforts were being made to nab Anshul, who is on the lam.