A 45-year-old man and his wife were arrested by the Chamarajanagar district police for murdering the five-year-old daughter of the man’s separated wife by drowning her in a water tank
Police said the accused, Mahesh, a resident of Somahalli in Chamarajanagar’s Gundlupet taluk, had separated from Gowramma about 15 years ago before marrying Ratnamma while Gowramma had married Mahadevaswamy of the same village.
On Monday, Mahadevaswamy lodged a complaint with the jurisdictional Terakanambi police station that their five-year-daughter, Mahalakshmi, was missing after she left for a relative’s house in the same village.
The police, who took up the investigation, soon found the five-year-old’s body wrapped in a plastic cover and kept in the puja room in the house of Mahesh. The police traced Mahesh and Ratnamma, who were hiding in the house of Mahesh’s father, and interrogated them.
During questioning, the accused – a childless couple – confessed to taking Mahalakshmi to their house while she was passing in front of their house on Monday afternoon, and pushing her into the sump and drowning her.
The accused reportedly told the police that they did so out of ‘jealousy’ as Gowramma was leading a happy life with Mahadevaswamy while they remained childless.
Superintendent of Chamarajanagar district police Divya Sara Thomas has complimented the police for cracking the crime and arresting the accused within six hours of receiving the complaint.
After finding their daughter missing from noon on Monday, Gowramma and Mahadevaswamy searched for her in the village, but in vain. By evening they lodged a missing complaint with the police, but shared their suspicion about the involvement of Mahesh and Ratnamma in their daughter’s disappearance. The police stumbled upon the five-year-old’s body when they searched the couple’s house.
