Woman Allegedly Murders Elderly Mother-In-Law With Lover's Help For Objecting Their Affair

An elderly woman was allegedly strangled to death by her daughter-in-law and paramour for objecting to their relationship, police said Monday.

The 40-year-old woman, identified by her first name Latha, and her alleged lover M.B. Balachandra, have been arrested for murdering Latha's 70-year-old mother-in-law, identified as Ningamma, from Tumakuru, a city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, reported news outlet The Hindu.

Ningamma was reported missing on July 19, and her decapitated body was found from rail tracks on the outskirts of the city the next day.

The suspects reportedly strangled Ningamma to death and took away her ornaments. The accused then reportedly dumped her decapitated body on the rail track to make it look like an accidental death.

The victim's severed head was dumped in a truck so that her identity could not be ascertained, police said. This was later recovered from the truck which was found in Ilkal, a city around 210 miles away from Tumakuru.

The victim's severely mutilated body was identified by her son and the police started an investigation. After a detailed investigation, the police zeroed in on Latha and Balachandra as the suspects.

Latha was reportedly in a relationship with Balachandra after her husband's death, but Ningamma objected to the relationship when she found about it.

According to the police, Latha owed around 2000 dollars to Ningamma and she had to pay her monthly maintenance from the property belonging to her husband. These circumstances prompted Latha to conspire with Balachandra to murder the victim, police said, as reported by Times Now News.

Last week, an 8-year-old boy in India was kidnapped and murdered by his mother's boyfriend after the child told his father about the man's illicit affair with his mother. The police arrested 21-year old Jitendra Maddheshiya from the western Indian state of Maharashtra after the missing child's body was found in a vacant flat in the same building as that of the victim. Maddheshiya who worked as a cook for the victim's family was reportedly fired by the child's father after he discovers the man's illicit affair with his wife.