Tarrannum Naik, a 23-year-old engineering student, was found dead in a valley near Naikwadi waterfall.
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. He claimed she jumped but that he lost his nerve at the last moment.
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. Police have seized the mobile phones of both for forensic analysis. The case surfaced on Saturday morning when Vadar approached a police station and reported that Tarrannum had fallen into the valley from a cliff. A local court on Sunday remanded Vadar in five days of police custody. The alleged murder triggered outrage in Gargoti, where residents marched to the police station on Sunday demanding a fast-track trial.
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. That raised serious doubts and led us to invoke BNS section 103(1) for murder,” said Vivek Patil, sub-divisional police officer, Gadhinglaj. “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.