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JABALPUR/BHOPAL: Instigated by her boyfriend, a 17-year-old girl allegedly drugged her entire family and hacked her father to death in his sleep in the wee hours of Friday because he disapproved of the relationship. Police cracked the murder on Sunday after a chance remark by a relative of the victim got them the breakthrough.

The victim, of Maili village , was murdered in his bed in a house he had built on his farm to guard crops. The hamlet is some 80km from Jabalpur town. Belkheda police arrived on the scene and realised that he had been hacked repeatedly with a heavy, sharp weapon, possibly an axe. But there was none in the area.

Also, the victim’s wife, daughter and elder son were sleeping in the courtyard of the house while his younger son was sleeping with him. None of them had any clue to when he was murdered or by whom. In fact, they hadn’t stirred in their sleep, neither had the victim because there were no defensive wounds.

Police ran into a wall because there didn’t seem to be any motive nor did he have any enemies. After sending the body for autopsy, they started questioning family members and acquaintances, but couldn’t zero in on a likely motive. Then, a relative, Halke Ram Gaud, recalled that on the day of the murder, he was asking about a new mobile phone he had found in the house. The seemingly innocuous bit of information turned the case on its head.

None of the victim’s family members had told police about a mobile being found in the house that day. When police asked his kin, his 17-yearold daughter admitted that Nepal Singh Lodhi, 29, who lived on a neighbouring farm had “gifted” the mobile to her. Police realised there was more to it and questioned her deeply. She broke down and confessed that her parents didn’t approve of her relationship with Nepal, who would goad her to lace her family’s food with sleeping pills before she came to meet him.

On the day of the murder, she told him that her father had found the mobile and was furious with her. He had barred her from even speaking with Nepal, she said. According to police, Nepal then provoked her to kill her father. On Thursday night, she waited for the pills to take effect. A little after midnight, she switched off the lights, picked up an axe and hacked her father to death, say police. She and Nepal have been arrested and the axe, which the girl had hidden in the fields, recovered.

