A 23-year-old woman was killed by her boyfriend in Maharashtra's Kolhapur district after she refused to marry him, police said on Monday. Investigators said the accused pushed her into a deep gorge near a waterfall and later tried to present the case as a disappearance.
The accused, Sripad Vadar, 25, has been arrested after police recovered the body of the woman, identified as Tarannum, from the gorge near Naikwadi Waterfall. Police said he was taken into custody after officers found inconsistencies in his account and he later confessed during questioning.
According to inspector Sandip Jagtap of Bhudargad police station, the incident took place on the afternoon of October 9. Vadar had taken Tarannum to a tourist spot near Patgaon village in Bhudargad taluka. The two were residents of Gargoti town and had been in a relationship for four to five years. Police said Tarannum's marriage had been fixed four months ago, after which she had started avoiding him.
Police said Vadar, upset over the change in her behaviour, took her to the spot for what he described as a final meeting before her marriage. He asked her to marry him, and when she refused, the two argued. During the argument, he pushed her into the gorge, the official said.
After returning home, Vadar told his family that Tarannum had gone missing. He claimed that he had parked his motorcycle and gone to fetch water for her, and that she had disappeared in the meantime, police said.
The case initially appeared to be that of a missing person, but officers noticed discrepancies in his version. Police then sought help from the Sahyadri Rescue Team from Amboli, which recovered Tarannum's body from the gorge on Saturday.
Police said the case, first treated as a disappearance, turned into a murder investigation after Vadar's account came under scrutiny. Tarannum's body was recovered from the gorge, and the accused has been remanded in police custody for five days.
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