Lucknow, Apr 10 (IANS): An 18-year-old girl died, allegedly due to a drug overdose after she was lured into a “thrill-seeking experience” by her male friend.

The friend took her to a vacant plot in Lucknow’s Tiwariganj and injected her with a mixture of medicine and an addictive drug, said the police.

The deceased had a private job in Bengaluru and returned to Lucknow on April 3.

The incident occurred when she left her Mahanagar residence on April 7 to catch a train to Bengaluru.

“The accused Vivek Maurya, 28, of Barabanki has been arrested. He was staying at Mahanagar and was friends with the victim,” said ACP (Vibhuti Khand) Anindya Vikram Singh.

The BBD police filed the FIR under IPC Section 302 (murder), but it was converted to IPC Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) during the probe, added the ACP.

According to the police, the girl’s condition deteriorated after the “cocktail overdose” while the youth also got heavily intoxicated.

When he dialled UP112 and sought help, the police rushed her to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. After conducting an ECG, doctors declared the girl dead.

The deceased’s family expressed apprehension that the “drug overdose” may have been deliberate to murder her, said cops.

During interrogation, the accused told police that his “thrill-seeking experiment” had gone wrong. He said the girl called him while leaving the house and sought to consume the addictive drug.

Maurya told cops that he took her to a friend’s vacant plot in Tiwariganj, where he mixed smack in Avil injection. He first administered it to himself and then injected the girl with it, said police.

In response to a complaint by the deceased’s mother, the BBD police took the accused into custody, lodged an FIR and then sent the body for a post-mortem examination.

During the investigation, the police came to know that the girl earlier used to live on rent with her family members in Vivek’s house in the New Hyderabad area in Lucknow. They said Vivek was addicted to drugs and he also made her consume the stuff.

The police said the accused got scared as soon as he came to know about the girl’s death and fled from the hospital. But before that, he informed the girl’s family about the incident. The police, however, arrested Vivek near the Indira Canal.

The police found a syringe and a pack of smack at the vacant plot.