Hyderabad: French woman murdered; body found near Gandipet lake

By Newsmeter Network  Published on  11 Sep 2021 9:15 AM GMT
Hyderabad: French woman murdered; body found near Gandipet lake

Hyderabad: The body of a missing French woman was found dumped near Gandipet lake on Saturday. The Cyberabad police have arrested her adopted daughter and two others.

The victim, Marie Christine (68), was the founder of Marica School in Gandipet, Ranga Reddy district. Her 24-year-old daughter, Roma, lived in Hanuman Nagar in Kondapur.

On 9 September, the Rajendranagar police received a complaint from Marie's son-in-law Prashanth who said his mother-in-law was missing. An FIR was registered and the police launched a search to trace the whereabouts of the missing woman. They soon discovered that she was murdered on the night of 8 September and her body was taken to Himayathsagar by the accused persons.

Marie Christine is from France but she migrated to India about 30 years ago. She settled down at Dargah Khalij Khan in Rajendranagar where she founded Marica High Schools in Toli Chowki, Hyderabad, and at Dargha Khaliz Khan Village to serve the poor and orphans.

Marie had two daughters - Marie Solange who is married to Prashanth and stays at Suncity, Hyderabad, and Rebecca who lives in Pondicherry (Puduchery). She had also adopted two girls, Roma and Priyanka, who lived at Dargah Khalij Khan.

The woman was looking to get Roma married and had created a profile on a Christian matrimony website. In May, Roma became acquainted with Vikram through the website. The two started living in a rented house in Kondapur. When Marie came to know of this, she refused to get them married.

Roma and Vikram then decided to kill Marie and get her property.

On the evening of 8 September, Roma came to Marie's house to meet her. Meanwhile, Vikram and his friend, an accomplice, waited outside. When Marie came out to go to the bathroom, the two strangled her to death with a rope. They put her body in the trunk of a car and took it to Himayathsagar reservoir to dump it.

They went back to Marie's residence, parked the car, stole her car keys, laptop, and phone. The next day, they transferred Rs. 2 lakh to Roma's account. Meanwhile, Roma tried to mislead her sisters and told them she did not know the whereabouts of their mother.

Initially, a missing person case was registered and Roma was a suspect. On a tip-off, she was apprehended and during interrogation, she confessed to the murder. Two others, Vikram and Rahul Gowtham, were also arrested.

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