Etawah (UP), Jan 13 (IANS): It was a balmy October afternoon in Bahadurpur Village under the limits of Balrai Police Station in Etawah when Jaiveer Pal and his wife Sushila went out to work, leaving their three daughters in the house.

The two younger daughters, Surbhi, 7 and Roshni, 5, went out to play, while their elder sister Anjali, 18, remained in the house.

As the sun began to go down, Surbhi and Roshni returned home and started looking for their sister but she was nowhere to be found.

The girls then opened the door of a room in the backyard and found Anjali in a compromising position with her boyfriend Aman. The girls threatened to inform their parents about Anjali’s relationship with Aman.

In a fit of rage, Anjali picked up a shovel and hit one of the girls who fell to the ground, unconscious. Frightened, the other sister began to cry out for help and this time, Aman hit her with the shovel.

By turns, Anjali and Aman kept hitting the girls with the shovel till they were sure that the two were dead.

After committing the murders, Anjali and Aman washed themselves and Aman fled the spot.

Anjali then picked up a bundle of fodder and went to the field where her parents and brothers were working. She behaved normally and said that the sisters were playing at home.

She continued to make small talk with her family members and an hour later, Anjali returned home with her parents and brothers.

She walked into the room where her sisters lay in a pool of blood and screamed out to her family. When questioned by her parents she feigned complete ignorance about the murders.

Ultimately, the police were called in and the post mortem report of the girls stated that there had been blunt force trauma and no sexual assault had taken place.

Meanwhile during interrogation, Anjali gave contradictory statements about the timing of her presence in the house and why she went to the field leaving her sisters behind.

Finally, under sustained interrogation, she broke down and confessed to the murders. The shovel used to kill the girls was also recovered.

Within hours of her arrest, her boyfriend Aman was also arrested and both are now in jail.

A senior police officer, then posted in Etawah, said, “It was a crime of rage. Anjali made no efforts to convince her sisters not to tell on her or lure them with goodies. She straightaway picked up the shovel and hit the girls. Even hours after the killings, she showed no remorse or repentance.”

Dr SK Satyarthi, a psychologist, meanwhile, said that Anjali’s case indicated that the girl was unwilling to let go of her relationship with her boyfriend and did not hesitate to kill her sisters.

“It was a crime of rage born out of passion, quite similar to the Shabnam case of Amroha District. Shabnam and her boyfriend killed eight members of her family by serving them tea laced with poison because they were opposed to their relationship. Such instances are on the rise because most teenagers are fixated on the idea of physical love and emotional importance holds little meaning for them.”