Tension prevailed in Sambhal after a youth belonging to the minority community was shot dead over his affair with a Hindu girl.
The assailants also tried to mislead the police by looting the tractor of the victim to make it look like a case of robbery and murder.
These facts came to the fore after the police arrested the accused on Monday and he confessed to the killing.
According to reports, Mehndi Hasan of Bilalpat in Sambhal was having relations with a girl belonging to the Hindu community. A few days back, the girl's brother had caught her interacting with Mehndi and this irked him. As the girl's brother knew Mehndi, he first tried to convince him to end his relations especially as they belonged to different communities. Mehndi, however, continued with his affair after which the girl's brother decided to get rid of him by eliminating him.
On January 21 last, the girl's brother and one of his friends called Mehndi to the forest in village Khanpur Bandh. They later shot him dead and dumped the body in a secluded place. They also took Mehndi's tractor and dumper and hid them to make it look like a case of loot and murder.
According to Sambhal's Superintendent of Police Kuldeep Singh Gunawat, during investigation, Mehndi's father revealed that his son was having an affair with a girl, also a resident of Khanpur Bandh. The call details record of the victim's mobile also pointed to his affair with a girl.
The police finally tried to interrogate the girl's family but found her brother, Atul Kumar, missing from the house. The police finally tracked his location on Sunday night and picked him. After being grilled through the night, Atul Kumar confessed to killing Mehndi with the help of his friend Ankit, a resident of Moradabad. Subsequently, the police arrested Ankit and on tips provided by both, the cops recovered the tractor and dumper.
Both the accused have been sent to jail and further investigations are on.
A police force has been deployed in the area as the arrest resulted in communal tension.
Meanwhile, the Mainpuri police arrested a couple and their relatives for allegedly killing their 14-year-old daughter and falsely framing their neighbours in the murder case.
The police said the couple strangled the victim, Shivani alias Janvi, to death for talking to a local youth despite their warnings not to do so.
The police identified the accused as the victim's father Kishanpal alias KP; mother Sudha alias Guddi Devi, aunt Baby, uncles Akhilesh and Rajneesh.
According to police, Kishanpal is a history-sheeter with 25 criminal cases registered against him. Akhilesh and Rajneesh also have one case each against them.
The murder came to light when the body of a minor girl with injury marks around her neck was found in an under-construction house in the Malawan area of Etah district on October 30, 2023. After more than two months of probe, the police found a girl was missing from the Nagla Harkesh village in the neighbouring Mainpuri district. The victim's family reached Etah and identified the body.
The victim's mother filed a police complaint against two neighbours, Dinesh Yadav and Vishesh Yadav, with whom the family had an old enmity. The mother alleged that Dinesh and Vishesh had kidnapped her daughter when she was going to market for some work. She alleged that the duo killed the girl and dumped the body in Etah, which is 55 km away from their village.
The investigation was later transferred from Etah to Mainpuri. The probe pointed out that Shivani used to talk with a youth and her parents were against it. They had thrashed her several times for not snapping ties with the youth even though he was from the same community. The parents finally killed their daughter in the name of saving family 'honour'.
The electronic surveillance confirmed the location of the girl's family at the spot where the body was dumped. During interrogation, the parents confessed that they had killed the girl with the help of Baby, Akhilesh and Rajneesh. All the accused were arrested, the police confirmed on Sunday evening.