Tarrannum Naik, a 23-year-old engineering student, was found dead in a valley near Naikwadi waterfall.
KOLHAPUR: A family’s decision to get their daughter married elsewhere allegedly led to the murder of a 23-year-old engineering student, whose boyfriend is accused of pushing her into a nearly 1,000ft-deep valley in Kolhapur district.Tarrannum Naik, a third-year engineering student from Gargoti, was found dead in the valley below Naikwadi waterfall in Bhudargad taluka.Her boyfriend, Sripad Vadar, 25, was arrested on Sunday after police found inconsistencies in his account of the circumstances leading to her death.Tarrannum’s marriage had been fixed for November 12, locals said. Vadar, who works with his brother, a local contractor, allegedly told police that he and Tarrannum had been in a relationship for five-and-a-half years and had decided to die by suicide together after her family arranged her marriage to another man.The case surfaced on Saturday morning when Vadar approached a police station and reported that Tarrannum had fallen into the valley from a cliff. He claimed she jumped but that he lost his nerve at the last moment.Police initially registered a case under Section 140(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), relating to wrongful confinement. However, an examination of the couple’s chat history cast doubt on his account of a suicide pact.
“The chat history does not support the account he gave us about a suicide pact. The messages suggested Sripad was upset over Tarrannum’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,” said Vivek Patil, sub-divisional police officer, Gadhinglaj.Police are awaiting the postmortem report to determine whether Tarrannum jumped or was pushed into the valley.
Patil said an advanced analysis of the report was expected to take three to four days.A local court on Sunday remanded Vadar in five days of police custody. Police have seized the mobile phones of both for forensic analysis.Naikwadi waterfall lies in an isolated, forested area about 50km from Gargoti. The waterfall had dried up after the monsoon, and there were no visitors at the spot when the couple reached there on Friday, police said.The alleged murder triggered outrage in Gargoti, where residents marched to the police station on Sunday demanding a fast-track trial.Locals said Tarrannum lived with her maternal grandmother in the Shivajinagar area of Gargoti while pursuing her studies and returned home during vacations. Her last rites were performed at her native Patgaon village in Bhudargad taluka.