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Kupwara man held for killing 6-year-old daughter after fight with wife
The deceased’s body was found by her mother in a shed just 30 m away from her residence at Zab Khurana of Kupwara district
Police arrested the father of the six-year-old girl who was found with her throat slit hours after she went missing in Kupwara district on March 29.
Probe officials said Mohammad Iqbal Khatana, 38, a driver by profession, strangled his daughter to death out of “frustration and rage” after a fight with his wife over personal issues.
Sharing details, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Kupwara Yougal Manhas, in a press conference, said their investigation put the needle of suspicion on people living around the place where her body was found. “After checking the sequence of events, the family of the girl came under focus. When we separately inquired from them, the father of the girl emerged as the prime suspect,” he said.
The SSP said they cross-questioned the father over the sequence of events that day, adding, “When we confronted him, he confessed to the murder of her daughter.”
The girl’s body was found by her mother in a shed just 30 m away from her residence at Zab Khurana in Lalpora area of the north Kashmir district on Wednesday night.
The SSP said that the girl’s parents would often indulge in fights. “On the fateful day, the couple had a fight in the morning and when Iqbal returned home in the evening, they again had a fight. The man’s wife slapped him. This triggered an uncontrolled anger in him and he left the house with a kitchen knife to kill himself,” the SSP added.
Police said the girl followed her father asking for money and followed him all the way up to the main-road as per his wife and other witnesses.
The SSP said Khatana was waiting for a late evening azaan and drove to Khurhama, adding, “He thought if he was to kill myself, what would happen to the girl. So, in a fit of rage, he suffocated his daughter for 2-3 minutes which led to her death at around 8.20 pm. He committed the crime due to the frustration and rage after the heated arguments with his wife.”
Khatana then took the dead body to a fire-wood shed next to his uncle’s house, the SSP said, adding, “Using the knife he slit her throat, so that the inmates of the houses adjacent to the fire-wood shed are put to blame.”
Police said they have recovered the knife and the blood stained clothes from Khatana. “Our technical evidence also corroborates where he went,” the SSP said.
