Vadodara: Adopted daughter kills parents for lover, bodies decompose for two months

The discovery of the decomposed body of an elderly couple on Tuesday sent shockwaves down the neighborhood.

A 16-year-old girl and her 22-year-old boyfriend were arrested for killing the girl’s adopted parents and leaving their bodies in the house to rot in an upmarket neighbourhood in Vadodara. The murder is said to have taken place in August.

The discovery of the decomposed body of an elderly couple from a locked bunglow in Manjalpur at midnight on Tuesday sent shockwaves down the neighbourhood. The disintegrating bodies of an elderly couple, Shrihari Vinod, 63, and his wife Sneha, 60, were found in their bedroom in Tirupati Society Bungalows after neighbours alerted the police. According to the police, the couple’s adopted 16-year-old daughter plotted and murdered her parents in early August and doused the body with a chemical to prevent emanating stench that could alert neighbours.

The neighbourhood of Manjalpur was shaken when cops broke open the doors of a bunglow that was ‘locked’ since early August after residents complained of a foul smell from the premises. What they saw inside was horrific. N M Ghod, Police Inspector of Manjalpur police station, said, “We found the highly decayed bodies of the couple, whom neighbours identified as Sneha and Shrihari Vinod. The post mortem of the bodies was conducted at SSG hospital but it has been difficult to exact the nature of death as the bodies are extremely decomposed. The forensics team, however, was able to ascertain that the death occurred sometime between August 3 and 5.”

Cops were stunned when they discovered a barrel of an acidic chemical that had been sprayed on the bodies – Sneha’s on the bed and Shrihari’s on the floor – to keep the bodies from giving out foul odour to alert the neighbours. A retired employee of Bank of Baroda, Shrihari, and his wife’s adopted 16-year-old daughter and a Class X student of Ambe School is the prime suspect along with her boyfriend 22-year-old Tapan Shailesh Purane.

While Purane has been arrested for murder, the daughter has been sent to a remand home. Cops say the duo has confessed to their crime. Ghod says, “During their questioning, the daughter and Tapan Purane have confessed that they killed the couple in August by stabbing them repeatedly and then sprayed the body with a local acidic chemical. They then locked the premises to make it appear that the family had moved out from the residence for some time. They said that they had decided to kill Vinod and his wife because they were opposed to the daughter’s love affair with Tapan as they wanted her to complete her education.”

The minor girl has told the police that Shrihari and Sneha had adopted her as a two-month-old baby. After the murder, the girl had been living in with Purane at another residential complex in the city. In fact, according to police officials, a major fight occurred between the girl and her adopted parents after Shrihari Vinod received a letter from her school informing him of her continuous absence from school.

“When Shrihari questioned the girl about missing school, she spoke of living in with Purane that led to a fight and the parents, like most parents do, tried to forcefully get her to mend her ways for her better future. But Purane, who knew she was an adopted daughter, convinced her to bump off the elderly couple and continue her life with him,” an official said.