A man has been arrested in Uttar Pradesh’s Hardoi district for allegedly murdering his 22-year-old niece, with whom he was having an extramarital affair, because she wanted to marry someone else. The accused, Manikant Dwivedi, had disposed of the body in an underconstruction building and thrown her cellphone in a bus to mislead the cops.
According to police, the woman, Mansi Pandey, had gone to her aunt’s Manikant’s wife — home Monday on the occasion of Rakshabandhan. When she did not return, her father Ramsagar Pandey registered a police case against Manikant, accusing him of taking his daughter away. The police took Manikant in custody and started questioning him.
District Police Chief Neeraj Kumar Jadaun said that the accused told police during questioning that he was in an affair with Mansi for two years now. “Recently, Mansi told him that she wants to marry someone else. This infuriated Manikant and he choked her to death,” he said.
Another cop said that Manikant threw Mansi’s phone in a moving bus to mislead the cops. Police said the body has been recovered from the underconstruction building and sent for post-mortem.
The victim’s father, Ramsagar Pandey, said he dropped off Mansi at Manikant’s home around 3 pm on Monday. “We went to our native village, then I went on Lucknow. On Wednesday, he (Manikant) called me and said Mansi is missing and her phone is switched off. He told me that Mansi has eloped, but I suspected him and filed a complaint.”
“Mansi’s wedding had been fixed for November 27. He did not want that to happen and had been asking her not to get married,” he said.
With Inputs From Mohd Asif
