Adopted daughter and friends arrested in French woman murder case in Hyderabad.

A 68-year-old French woman, who had been missing for three days, was found murdered near Himayatsagar reservoir on Sunday. The Cyberabad police arrested three persons, including the deceased’s adopted daughter.

The deceased, Marie Christine, migrated to India 30 years ago and settled at Dargah Khalij Khan, Rajendranagar. She was running a school named Marica High Schools at Tolichowki and Dargah Khaliz Khan Village, serving the poor and orphans.

Christine went missing on Wednesday night and the police registered a case following a complaint on Thursday. Roma (24), the adopted daughter of Marie, and two others by the name Vikram Sriramula (25) and Rahul Gowtham (24) were arrested on Saturday. They were booked under charges of murder, theft, criminal conspiracy, and causing disappearance of evidence, by Rajendranagar police.

DCP Shamshabad N Prakash Reddy told the media Roma was the key suspect and during the examination, she confessed



to committing the crime.

According to the police, while Marie was looking for a suitable marriage alliance for Roma, she grew close to Vikram and both moved into a rented house in Kondapur. As Marie did not approve of this relationship, Roma decided to eliminate her and conspired with Vikram and Rahul, said the DCP.

Roma visited Marie on the day of the murder and was later dropped off by the latter at their school. Meanwhile, the two other accused waited for Marie at her residence. She was strangled to death by the two accused, and the body was transported in their car to Himayatsagar reservoir and thrown in the bushes to erase evidence, said police.

The accused then returned to Marie’s home, stole her car keys, laptop and iPhone. The next day, they transferred Rs 2 lakh into Roma’s bank account. Apart from a strong suspicion of Roma, technical clues like call recordings, bank transactions led to the arrest of the accused, said the DCP.