Parents, Brother Of Maharashtra Woman Who Married Lover's Body Arrested For His Murder

The parents and brother of the woman who married her boyfriend's corpse after he was beaten to death in Maharashtra's Nanded are among six people who have been arrested in the murder case.

Twenty-year-old Saksham Tate was killed on Thursday evening after a fight erupted between him and the brother of his girlfriend, 21-year-old Aanchal Mamidwar.

The police have named eight accused - Gajanan Balaji Mamidwar (Aanchal's father), Jayshree Mamidwar (Aanchal's mother), Sahil Gajanan Mamidwar (Aanchal's elder brother), Somesh Subhash, Vedant Ashok Kundekar, Chetan Balaji Mamidwar and one unnamed person - in the dishonour killing case. Aanchal's 17-year-old brother is also among the accused. While six of them have been caught, two are on the run. The accused were produced in court today and while her mother was sent to judicial custody, the other accused, excluding the minor brother, were sent to three-day police custody.

Aanchal's younger brother allegedly fired at Tate, the bullets piercing his ribs, and then smashed a tile on his head.

Read | "My Family Betrayed Us": Woman Who 'Wed' Lover's Body After Caste Murder

On Friday, while preparations were underway for the final rites of Tate, a distraught Aanchal "married" his body. Visuals of the heartbreaking scene have been widely circulated on social media. She also told reporters that she planned to stay in Tate's house from here on.

Later, while speaking to NDTV, she claimed that her family betrayed her. "We were together for three years... My brothers had assured me that they would organise our wedding. But they betrayed us at the last moment," she said.

She also alleged that two policemen provoked her brothers to attack Saksham Tate. "Around 11 am on the day Saksham was murdered, my younger brother took me to the police station and asked me to file a false complaint against Saksham. I refused. The cops told my brother, 'You keep coming here after killing people. Why don't you kill the man your sister is involved with?' My brother replied, "Okay, I will kill him by evening and come to you."

She also said the "murder happened due to caste". While Aanchal Mamidwar is from the Special Backward Class, Tate was a Dalit.

Both Tate and Aanchal's brothers had criminal records and were once close friends. The Mamidwar family opposed their relationship, but the couple's refusal to end it finally culminated in Tate's killing, police said.