A 28-year-old man was arrested on Monday for allegedly strangulating his two-year-old daughter to death suspecting that she was his illegitimate child, police said. The police identified the accused as Ramesh, a resident of Baijnath Pur village under Chiluatal police station and a brick kiln worker.

Police said Ramesh was a drunkard and often used to beat up his wife due to which she had left him to stay with her parent in the same village along with her three children — Kajal (8), Price (5) and Shreya (2). Ramesh killed his youngest daughter after taking away all his children from their mother’s custody on Sunday evening and returned on Monday morning on a motorcycle with his eldest daughter Kajal’s holding her dead sibling’s body in her lap and her brother Prince sitting behind her on the bike. After Ramesh returned with the dead body of his youngest daughter, the villagers caught hold of him to know the reason behind the death.

Ramesh’s eldest daughter Kajal told villagers and later police that after taking them with himself, her father kept on roaming around here and there and finally settled for the night halt in an orchard. She also told villagers that his father often used to tell her mother and Shreya was not his daughter.

She said her father late in the night strangulated Shreya to death with her scarf and then set out for the village on the motorcycle. On the motorcycle, he asked Kajal to keep Shreya’s body in her lap as they rode back home, said police.

Hearing this, the villagers thrashed Ramesh and handed him over to the police. The police registered a case of murder and launched a probe into the entire episode after arresting Ramesh.