Honour killing: Father, brother held for strangling woman in UP village for living in with lover

Muzaffarnagar (UP): Police have arrested the father and brother of the 23-year-old woman whose half-burnt body was found in a forest here, an officer said on Tuesday.

He claimed that Saraswati Maliyan, who was found in a charred state on June 3, was a victim of honour killing .

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sanjay Kumar told reporters that Saraswati's 55-year-old father, Rajvir Singh, and her 24-year-old brother, Sumit Kumar, were nabbed in connection with her death from Jadvad village Sunday evening.

"During the investigation, both accused confessed to strangling Saraswati to death. They claimed that she had tarnished the family's reputation with her relationship choices," the officer said.

The two said they killed her on May 29 and set her body on fire with petrol in the forest near a canal.

According to police, Saraswati had married twice — once in 2019 and again in 2022 — but both marriages ended. She later returned to her lover against the wishes of her family.

Police have booked Rajvir Singh and Sumit Kumar under BNS sections 103 (murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) and have sent them to jail.

Saraswati, an employee of an e-commerce firm in Gurugram, had been living in with a man from her village, police said.