Hate crime: 3 of family held for killing couple in K’taka district
Bagalkot rural police circle inspector Bheemappa Suri told HT the murders in Bagalkote were committed on September 30 in Bevinamatti village f Bagalkote district but came to light on Tuesday while they probing a missing persons complaint lodged by the girl’s father on October 11.
A 22-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl were allegedly murdered by her family members over their inter-caste relationship in Bagalkote district of Karnataka, police said on Monday. The murder comes on the heels of the killing of a 19-year-old man in Vijayapura in a similar manner in September.
Bagalkot rural police circle inspector Bheemappa Suri told HT the murders in Bagalkote were committed on September 30 in Bevinamatti village f Bagalkote district but came to light on Tuesday while they probing a missing persons complaint lodged by the girl’s father on October 11.
So far, three relatives of the girl have been arrested in connection with the case while a search is on for four others, including her father, said Suri.
“The girl is 17-year-old and the boy was 22-years-old. The girl belongs to the Kuruba community and the boy, who worked as a mason, belonged to the Valmiki community. They were in a relationship for over four years and it was opposed by the girl’s family,” said Suri.
The Kuruba community is listed in the Other Backward Classes (OBC), while Valmikis are designated as a Scheduled Tribe (ST).
According to the inspector, the girl’s family members had warned the male victim to stay away from the girl and had assaulted him twice in last year. Following the second assault, the male victim’s parents sent him to Kasargod in Kerala to work as a mason but he remained in contact with the girl, Suri added.
The inspector said that on September 30, the girl’s father called the male victim to Bagalkote under the pretext of getting them married. “He promised to forget all the enmity and made it look like a meeting to set aside differences. As soon he (male victim) arrived from Kerala, the girl’s relative’s picked him up and smashed his head with a stone,” said Suri, adding that another group of relatives murdered the girl around the same time by strangulating her.
Both bodies were then put inside a truck which was pushed off the Hunagunda bridge into the Krishna river, said the inspector. and later the bodies are thrown inside the Krishna river. Hunagunda bridge.
On October 11, the father of the girl filed a complaint at the Bagalokote rural police station claiming that his daughter was missing. According to Suri, the murders came to light when they were investigating in the village in connection with the missing person complaint. The villagers informed the police about the couple’s relationship and when the police questioned the relatives in connection with the murder, they confessed to the killing.
A case was registered under IPC section 302 (murder) and under relevant sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, at Bagalkot rural police station.
The bodies of the victims have not been recovered so far as rain is hampering search efforts, according to Suri.