Bengaluru factory owner Anand Raj arrested after 22-year-old worker Kiran dies in Yelahanka

A 22-year-old worker has died in Bengaluru's Yelahanka area, and police have arrested factory owner Anand Raj in connection with the death. Police allege that Anand Raj locked the young man in a house and beat him with a cricket bat. The act is said to have been driven by anger over the worker's relationship with his 19-year-old daughter. The incident has caused a major stir across the city.

According to police, Anand Raj runs a factory in Yelahanka that makes sweet corn machines. Kiran, a 22-year-old, worked at the factory. Anand Raj's 19-year-old daughter lives in a hostel in Mysuru and is a second-year Pre-University Course (PUC) student. She met Kiran when she came home for the Dasara holidays, and the two grew closer.

Police say a relationship had developed between the two, but Anand Raj did not accept it at all.

On Monday, Anand Raj told his daughter that he was going to his native place in Tamil Nadu. However, he returned home suddenly with his wife that afternoon. On reaching home, he is said to have found Kiran and his daughter together in one room. He then sent his daughter, along with her mother, to a relative's house in Chikkaballapur. Kiran, however, was allegedly kept locked in the house and beaten severely with a cricket bat through the night.

The next afternoon, Anand Raj kicked Kiran hard in the lower abdomen, police said. Kiran collapsed from the blow and died on the spot. Seeing him lying motionless, the frightened accused took him to a hospital in an auto-rickshaw. Doctors there examined Kiran and declared him dead.

On receiving information, a team from Yelahanka police station reached the spot. Police have registered a case of murder and arrested factory owner Anand Raj. Further investigation is under way.