Gurugram: 24-yr-old man held for killing 10-year-old sister-in-law for ‘revenge’

A 24-year-old man was arrested from Gurugram’s Bajghera area for allegedly murdering his estranged wife’s 10-year-old sister after she refused to reconcile with him, police said on Wednesday. In a chilling act of revenge, he packed the girl’s body in a plastic bag and dumped it in a manhole.

The accused, who suspected that his wife had remarried, abducted the girl on Saturday night when only she and her mother were home. Police said he was caught while trying to flee the city on Tuesday.

“He had lured the girl on his motorcycle on Saturday. He took her to his room and kept her captive till 11pm, assuring to drop her home soon. However, he throttled her to death in the next few minutes,” inspector Bijender Singh, station house officer of Palam Vihar police station, said.

The officer said the accused packed the body in a plastic bag, loaded it on his motorcycle and dumped it in a manhole almost 1.5 kilometres away. “On his indication, the girl’s body in the plastic bag, wrapped in a shawl, was recovered from a manhole connecting a sewer in Bajghera on Tuesday night,” SHO Singh said.

HT is withholding all names to protect the identity of the accused, as police said they are probing to ascertain if the girl was sexually assaulted before being murdered.

Police said the accused and his wife married around six years ago and have a five-year-old son. However, due to marital discord, she returned to her parent’s home in Palam Vihar over a year ago, police said.

Police said the accused came to Gurugram from Munger in Bihar and worked as a housekeeping staffer at a Bajghera office.

“The couple got married six years ago and has a five-year-old son. Due to marital discord, the woman was living with her parents, at another location out of Gurugram. He even approached her parents but failed to get any help, which made him feel humiliated. He developed suspicion that she probably has remarried,” SHO Singh said.

On failing to make headway, the accused decided to take revenge and had been hatching the plan for the past two-and-a-half months, police said.

According to the police, on the day of the abduction, the accused initially tried to strangle his mother-in-law, but she managed to flee. He panicked and took the girl. Upon failing to trace the girl for two days, the family lodged a missing persons’ complaint on Monday, but did not disclose the incident involving their son-in-law, police said. However, police ascertained the truth by questioning them and arrested the accused on Tuesday evening.

Police said they sent the girl’s body for an autopsy to ascertain if she was sexually assaulted. A case of murder was filed against the accused at the Palam Vihar police station.