Daijiworld Media Network - Mandya (SP)

Mandya, Apr 4: After a second year PU student ended her life by hanging herself in a village in the district, strong suspicion that it was a honour killing has surfaced, because of the fact that the girl's cremation was conducted in a hurry without informing the police about her unnatural death. As such, the police have registered a case Suo motu.

The police have took into custody three people including the parents of the girl and her maternal uncle, and questioned them. The parents however stuck to their stand that the girl had ended her life, she had left behind a death note and that cremation was conducted in a hurry because of keeping the body would have affected the sanctity of the village festival.

Monica (18), daughter of Mohan and Bhagyamma couple from Thimmanahosur village in the taluk was a second PU student of a college in the city. On March 31, she went missing, after which her parents filed a complaint in the rural police station here. She came back the next day, and told her parents that she had not done well in the examination, and that because of this frustration, she had visited the house of her maternal uncle, Suresh, at Bengaluru.

On Sunday April 3 morning, her body was found hanging from a tree in front of her house. A death note saying that no one was responsible for her death was found from near the tree.

It is gathered that Monica, who belonged to a superior caste, was in love with a youth from a lower caste. In villages in this district, people belonging to lower castes are looked down upon. Allegedly, the girl had left her home three days back with this youth. Mohan's family enjoys the status of being the richest and most eminent in this village, and there is suspicion that Monica was killed to hold the family honour high as the family disapproved of her love.