Five days after the gruesome killing of an 8-year-old child in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district, police investigations have found that the father was behind the murder of her daughter. The little girl had come in the way of his plan to die by suicide.
Police have arrested Mohammad Iqbal Khatana on murder charges.
A senior officer supervising investigations said that 45-year-old Iqbal, a driver by profession, has confessed to having killed his daughter after a failed plan to take his own life.
On Wednesday evening, the 8-year-old didn't let her father alone after Iqbal left home with a knife following a fight with his wife.
The girl accompanied Iqbal and got into his vehicle when he tried to drive away.
Police said that ugly fights between the couple over some dispute had become routine.
When Iqbal left his home at Khurhama village in the Lolab area, his daughter, one of four siblings, followed him and refused to go back, said an official.
Investigations have revealed that for 45 minutes, Iqbal tried to persuade the child to leave and also gave her Rs 10 to buy candies, but she refused to go.
"Since the girl was also in the vehicle, he thought about how he would take the drastic step in her presence. In a fit of rage, he strangled her and the girl died," Yogul Manhas, Senior Superintendent Of Police, Kupwara, said.
"He later slit her throat, and dumped the body in a firewood storage shed," the officer said.
Iqbal went home a few hours later.
When the family asked him about the girl, he denied that she was accompanying him. Police said at least four people had seen the girl accompanying Iqbal.
"It appears that after killing his daughter, he had an afterthought and didn't attempt to take his own life," Mr Manhas said.
Iqbal went to the police station and filed a missing report when the family confronted him about the girl, police said.
"But by the time he returned from the police station, the family and relatives had recovered the body from the firewood storage shed," the SSP said.
Thousands had gathered for the last rites of the child, and demanded severe punishment for Mohammad Iqbal Khatana.
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