Malegaon police have arrested all three of the accused after the father confessed to the murder (Representative Image) | Photo Credit: BCCL

Nashik: The parents of a 17-year-old girl along with her cousin have been arrested by Malegaon police for strangling her and attempting to cover up the murder by telling police officials that the minor girl died because of a heart attack. The matter came to light after the girl's boyfriend a 17-year-old told police that her death could not have been caused by a heart attack.

Upon receiving the tip, police officials rushed to a cremation ground where the girl's body lay on a funeral pyre about to be set ablaze. Following opposition by the victim's kin, police upon suspecting foul play retrieved the body from the funeral pyre and sent it for a post-mortem. Intervention by the girl's boyfriend proved to be true when a post-mortem of the victim's body suggested that her death was caused by strangulation.

An FIR was then registered in connection with the girl's death and police brought in her parents for questioning. During the course of the interrogation, the father confessed to murdering his own daughter along with his wife and one of his nephews. In a statement he gave to the police, the man said that his wife bought 20 sleeping pills from a local store on October 1, the victim's birthday.

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We spiked the dinner with the pills and waited for her to fall asleep, said the father adding that the couple along with one of their nephews then strangled the girl. Police officers familiar with the matter said that the parents disapproved of her relationship with a boy who hailed from a different caste. In fact, they were against the idea of her dating someone at such a young age, said one officer adding that both the boy and the girl fall in the OBC category.

In his confession, the 41-year-old father said that he held his daughter's legs while his wife held her hands as his nephew strangled her to death. They then contacted their relatives and told them that their daughter suffered a heart attack and could not survive it. They then took her to a civil hospital from where they were referred to a private medical facility.

All three of the accused have been booked under sections 302, 328, 201 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which amount to charges of murder and destruction of evidence among others. They have been remanded in judicial custody after being held in police custody for eight days.

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