UP: 12-year-old girl allegedly murders adoptive mother with 15-year-old boyfriend’s help

A class 7 student, aged about 12 years, allegedly murdered her adoptive mother with help of her 15-year-old boyfriend (a class 9 student) in Fatehpur district of Uttar Pradesh as the mother was averse to the girl seeing the boy.

The woman had adopted the child when she was three months old, the police said.

The incident took place early on December 25. She allegedly strangled her adoptive mother with the boy’s help and destroyed two cell phones to evade police surveillance.

The girl told the neighbours that her adoptive mother Qamarunnisan, 45, was unwell. She said that was why she (the girl) was responding to calls made to her adoptive mother’s phones.

Superintendent of police, Fatehpur, Sriparna Ganguly said the girl was arrested with her boyfriend and sent to a juvenile home after a case of murder was registered.

The crime came to light when a neighbour became suspicious on seeing the body being prepared for burial and informed the police on December 26 afternoon. The woman’s husband Peer Mohammad works in Mumbai and is expected to return to Fatehpur.

The girl told the police she was a student of class 7 at the Muslim Inter College where the boy also studied.

On December 24, she called her boyfriend to the house, angering Qamarunnisan, the police said. She slapped the girl and forced the boy to leave the house around 10pm, the police added.

Sunil Singh, the Kotwali station house officer who claimed to have cracked the case, said the girl again called the boy to the house around midnight.

Both of them then allegedly strangled Qamarunnisan in her sleep before they moved the body to another room and locked it, the police said.

“She left the house with the boy and remained with him through the night. They had breakfast together at a hotel where the boy and she destroyed their cell phones,” said Singh.

The next day, around noon, she came back to her house and first went to Liyaquat Ali, a neighbour, the police said.

She told him that her adoptive mother was lying motionless and not even taking water, according to the police. She also told him her adoptive mother was under a Kanpur doctor’s treatment and had been coughing a lot in the last few days.

When Liyaquat checked, he found the woman lifeless. He took Peer Mohammad’s number and called him in Mumbai, informing him about his wife’s death.

Singh said he (the SHO) was informed by a neighbour who found the death unnatural.

The girl gave contradictory versions to police officers, the police said. First, she said her mother had been ill. Then, she claimed the woman had fainted. Last, she alleged the mother had committed suicide, the police said.

The girl broke down when she was questioned on Tuesday noon and confessed to the murder, the police said. She also gave the details of the boy who lived in Uttari Kheldar locality.