A man in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur has been arrested for allegedly choking his five-year-old daughter to death and chopping up her body into four pieces. The motive shared by police is more shocking than the crime: accused Mohit was angry because his daughter Tani visited his neighbours with whom he had a dispute.

A senior police officer told the media that on February 25, they were informed that the child had gone missing from near her home. “We registered a case and four teams were formed to find her. During the search, we found a piece of her body. The next day, we found other parts. By now, it was clear that she had been murdered,” Additional Superintendent of Police Pravin Ranjan Singh told the media.

He added that they had been questioning people repeatedly as part of the probe when the girl’s father disappeared. “The father gave his phone to his wife and disappeared. When he disappeared, we asked the family members about the events that took place before the child went missing. When the father resurfaced, he was questioned and he eventually confessed to killing the girl and disposing of the body,” the officer said.

Mohit has told police that his family and neighbour Ramu’s family were very close earlier and would often visit each other. “Some days back, the two families had an altercation and they stopped visiting each other. Mohit repeatedly told his daughter to stop going to Ramu’s place, but she would still go and play there.”

“On the day of the incident, Mohit said, he saw his daughter coming from Ramu’s place. This angered him so much that he made the child sit on his bike, took her to a deserted place and choked her to death using her clothes. He then threw the body in a mustard field,” he said.

The senior police officer praised police for their work in uncovering the chilling crime and said over 100 people were questioned during the investigation.

Inputs by Mohammed Sameer