BIJNOR: Blinded by jealousy, a woman allegedly killed her four-year-old step-daughter and subjected her to burns with candle wax to make it look like a tantric ritual. The victim was the daughter of her husband’s second wife. She was arrested on Saturday.

The child had gone missing around 10:30 am on Friday and her body was found in a field, around 250 meters from Nagarpur Khadagsen village under Sherkot police station. Initially, it seemed that the child was a victim of tantric rituals but while probing, police found that the child’s father had married twice. The child was his second wife’s daughter.

According to police, they zeroed in on Rajni, 30, who had married to Annu Kashyap in 2004. The couple had two children. In 2010, her husband married Anita. Later, she delivered a baby girl.

Rajni told police that she could not bear to see her husband showering his affections on his second wife and their daughter, Chandni. Ever since, he got married the second time, he had started ignoring her and her children.

Driven by jealousy, Rajni got an opportunity to settle scores with Anita on Friday morning. She used to work as a sweeper at a local school. On Friday afternoon, when she returned home from work, she saw Chandni playing alone while Anita was taking a bath.

At the spur of the moment, Rajni decided to “teach Anita a lesson”. She picked

the child and went to the nearby fields, she told police. There she allegedly strangled Chandni with the draw strings of her pajama. Then, she deliberately burnt parts of the girl’s body to make it look like a tantric ritual. She thought she could divert people’s attention from herself to an unknown tantric.

However, the plan failed, said superintendent of police (rural) Vishvajeet Shrivastava. He said police detained Rajni and after sustained questioning, she confessed to her crime.

Police have registered a case against Rajni under IPC section 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) and sent jail.