Lucknow: Bodies of a 19-year-old youth and a 15-year-old girl were found hanging from a tree in a village in Kushinagar, police said.A case of murder was registered after the post-mortem examination report confirmed head injuries as the primary cause of death. Kushinagar SP Santosh Mishra said, “The autopsy ruled out suicide, revealing that both the victims sustained deep injuries, particularly on the head, before being hanged. A murder case has been registered against unidentified people to widen the scope of investigation.”Police claimed that both belonged to the same caste and were in a relationship for the past three years. However, their families opposed the relationship. “Local sources confirmed that elders of the village held two panchayats in the past to resolve the matter,” a police officer said.“The two teenagers went missing from their homes around 3pm on Tuesday. The next morning, villagers found their bodies hanging from a mango tree, just 400 metres from their homes. The girl had a deep wound on her head, and bloodstains were found on the boy’s clothes. Their knees were touching the ground, further deepening suspicions of a staged hanging,” he said.The man’s sister accused the girl’s cousins of killing her brother. “They had assaulted and threatened him in the past. This time, they took him away and killed him,” she alleged. The girl’s mother said she left home on Tuesday and when she returned, she found the girl missing.SHO Sushil Kumar Shukla said, “The autopsy report indicates that the head injuries were inflicted before death, which confirms this was not a case of suicide.”We have lodged an FIR under Section 103 (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Further investigation is in progress.”
