The police in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district have arrested a man for allegedly killing his girlfriend by pushing her into a 1,000-feet deep valley after her family arranged her marriage to another man.
The body of the woman, 23-year-old Tarannum Khan, was found in a valley below the Naikwadi waterfall in Kolhapur’s Bhudargarh taluka. The police arrested her boyfriend Sripad Vadar after they found inconsistencies in his version about how she died, The Times of India reported.
Accused Man’s Claim
Vadar had allegedly claimed before the police that he and Khan had been in a relationship for over five years, and that after her marriage was fixed, they had decided to die by suicide together. Khan’s marriage was said to have been slated for November 12.
On Saturday, Vadar had approached a police station and claimed that Khan had fallen into a valley as part of the suicide pact. He told the police that he lost his nerve at the last moment, The Times of India reported.
Chat History Raises Doubts
While the police initially filed a case of wrongful confinement, an examination of Vadar’s chat history with Khan cast doubts about his version.
“The chat history does not support the account he gave about a suicide pact,” the newspaper quoted Sub-Divisional Police Officer Vivek Patil as saying. “The messages suggested Sripad was upset over Tarannum’s family’s decision to get her married to someone else. That raised serious doubts and led us to invoke BNS Section 103 (1) for murder.”
The police are now said to be waiting for the results of a post-mortem report to determine whether Khan jumped of her own accord into the valley, or was pushed.
