Berhampur: Police in Odisha’s Ganjam district have arrested a 26-year-old woman for allegedly strangling her nine-year-old niece to death, driven by deep-seated jealousy over her own childlessness.
The accused has been identified as Bidyabharati Moharana, wife of Ganesh Moharana. The crime occurred on Wednesday at Laxmanapalli village near Chhamunda, under Jagannath Prasad police limits.
According to sources, the victim, a resident of Kanakuturu village near Buguda, who had been living in Bhubaneswar, had accompanied her mother and sister to her maternal uncle’s house on Wednesday for a medical check-up. The Two sisters played outside following lunch around 10:30 am. Tthe younger girl returned home around 1:30 pm and asked her aunt for food. Seizing the opportunity with no one at home, Bidyabharati allegedly throttled the young girl with a piece of cloth, then wrapped the body in a plastic sheet and dumped it in an abandoned toilet behind her house.
Upon returning from a medical visit to Kanakuturu with her brother, the victim’s mother found her daughter missing.
Despite an intensive search, the family could not locate her and alerted the police.
Officers, including Ganjam SP Suvendu Patra, Additional SP Ranjan Kumar De, SDPO Deepak Kumar Mishra, and a forensic team, recovered the body from the abandoned latrine late Wednesday evening.
Preliminary investigations and the accused’s confession during interrogation revealed that the murder stemmed from jealousy. Bidyabharati, married for three years without children, harboured resentment toward her sister-in-law. She was reportedly furious with her husband for prioritising his sister’s pregnancy-related medical consultations over her own fertility issues.
