Relatives and friends gather outside the house of the deceased.

BENGALURU: A 41-year-old apparel businessman whose burned body was found in his Rajajinagar bungalow on Sunday was murdered allegedly by his 15-year-old daughter and her 19-year-old boyfriend . The Class X student reportedly resented her father for objecting to the relationship and for curbing her use of cellphone and social media. Police said she admitted to killing her father to “get my freedom back”.

DCP (North) N Shashikumar said the girl and her boyfriend, Praveen, decided to kill her father on Saturday night when her mother and brother were away for a family function in Puducherry. Praveen is a first-year BCom student of a Malleswaram college and lives nearby.

TOI is withholding the identities of father and daughter as she is a minor.

Girl, boy were armed with knives: Cops

According to police, the girl on Saturday bought sleeping tablets from a medical store and kept them in her schoolbag. Her father returned home after dropping her mother, brother and uncle at Yeshwantpur railway station in the evening. The girl allegedly mixed six sleeping tablets in his customary glass of milk before bed and waited. Once he seemed sound asleep, she called Praveen who came around midnight.

The girl and the boy were armed with knives and stabbed her father repeatedly till he bled to death in his bed. Over the next eight hours, they planned how to dispose of the body. Since carrying it out of the bungalow would attract attention, they decided to burn it. Around 7am, the girl went out and bought petrol in three bottles. Dragging the body to the bathroom, they doused it in petrol and set it on fire.

The plan, according to police, was for the girl to raise alarm from the terrace. Neighbours noticed smoke coming from the bathroom and called the fire control room. While Praveen was to escape in the melee, he stayed put and claimed he had sustained burns while trying to save the girl’s father. On police questioning, both broke down and confessed.

Police said the businessman came to Bengaluru 20 years ago and ran a wholesale apparel shop in Rajajinagar. His daughter met Praveen four years ago at an international school. They became close friends. Despite her father’s objections, the relationship continued. There were restrictions on using mobile phones and social media. The last straw, the girl reportedly said, was when her father hit her recently with a belt.

“A court has sent the girl to a juvenile home,” an officer said. The body was handed over to family after autopsy at Victoria Hospital. The final rites were held on Monday.

2 teenagers tried everything to cover up their tracks: DCP

The 15-year-old girl and her boyfriend made every attempt to cover up their involvement, wiping bloodstains on the floor, washing clothes, and dragging her father’s body to the bathroom to remove other incriminating signs, DCP N Shashikumar said on Monday.

The two teens are accused of drugging the victim, stabbing him in his bedroom and setting him ablaze on Sunday.

They, according to police, had planned to dispose of the body, but dropped the idea at the last minute out of fear that they might be caught on the way. “They decided to burn the body and to make it look like someone else had entered the house and murdered him,” Shashikumar said.

They hauled the body to a bathroom, cleaned the bedroom, and tossed their bloodsoaked clothes and bed linen into the washing machine. The girl left home around 7am on Sunday and bought three bottles of water from a hotel. She emptied them out and took them to a fuel station, filling them with petrol.

Around 10.30am, she and Praveen allegedly doused her father’s body in petrol and set it alight. “Praveen suggested she should rush to the terrace and scream for help. By then, neighbours had alerted the fire control room,” Shashikumar said. The two teens rubbed some petrol on themselves and singed their hands and feet to make it appear that they had suffered burns trying to save the victim. The DCP said they had thought that neighbours would rush in to help and Praveen would be able to flee in the commotion.

“But neighbours noticed Praveen. They saw the injuries he and the girl had sustained and sent them to a hospital,” an officer said. Later, police brought the two to the house to verify the sequence of events. “The boy claimed the girl called him saying there had been a fire. He had burn marks on the upper portion of his feet, which was odd. We asked him how he managed to save the sole of his feet from the fire,” the officer said.

Praveen said he was wearing slippers when he tried to stamp out the flames, but he could not say where they were. “We realised they were not telling the truth and pressed them further,” the officer said.

Take action if he’s guilty: Boy’s family

Praveen’s family members have reportedly told police that they are law-abiding citizens and if Praveen had committed a crime, action should be taken against him.

