Relative held for murder of Coimbatore college girl

The girl studying second year in a private college, was found dead with her throat slit in a bush along the side of the road at Poosaripatty near Pollachi on Saturday evening.

As the girl did not return home in her native, Dindigul, after leaving college on Friday, her father, a financier, lodged a missing complaint with the Kattur police. When they went through the footage recorded by a CCTV fixed at a petrol bunk on Avarampalayam Road, the police identified her uncle Sathish Kumar (30) taking the girl in a car.

Sathish Kumar had accompanied the girl’s parents to the police station and claimed ignorance of her whereabouts. But he then went into hiding on knowing that the police were on track and could arrest him soon for the crime.

Sathish Kumar, who runs a pawn shop in Palakkad district in Kerala, is married and settled with his wife and child in the neighbouring state. “He used to meet the girl in Coimbatore without the knowledge of his wife. On Friday, Sathish Kumar took the girl in his car to Pollachi and sexually assaulted her,” the police said.

On knowing that she got engaged to another man, Sathish Kumar killed her by slitting her throat with a knife and dumped her body along the roadside, the police said.

Meanwhile, the girl’s body was handed over to the family after post-mortem examination at Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital (CMCH).

Speaking to the media, the girl’s brother, a farmer, said maximum punishment should be given to the accused for murdering his sister.

“My sister used to study well. So we decided to send her to a college that is so far. She called my mother to inform that she is waiting to board a bus on Friday around 1.45 pm. Then around 3.30 pm, she told her fiancé that she reached Palladam.

Thereafter we could not reach her as her mobile remained switched off. The murderer should be given maximum punishment,”he said.