According to the police, Priyanka Singh, the 25-year-old former Miss Meerut, along with her friend Anju, killed her parents in a fit of rage, under “sudden provocation.” Priyanka and Anju, who were produced at a court in Meerut, have been charged with murder and loot, and have been sent to 14 days of judicial custody.

Priyanka, the small town girl with big dreams, is in the custody of the Meerut Police, and has confessed to having killed her 70-year-old father, and her 65-year-old mother. In May this year, Priyanka’s father, Prem Singh, a retired engineer of the UP Power Corporation, had excluded Priyanka from his will.

Priyanka said was home to collect her marksheet on Monday, November 10, when she allegedly committed the murder. Police, too, say the murder was not a premeditated one. Priyanka and Anju, who were close friends, had merely gone to meet Priyanka’s mother, to “talk about why she was being discriminated against.”

The provocation for murder came when Priyanka’s mother called her a “najayaz aulad” - illegitimate child - saying she deserved the family’s scorn. This had followed repeated accusations by her father also calling her “illegitimate.”

Priyanka said: “My mother abused me. She said so what if I had been raped, it happens. She raised her hand, which is when I put my hand on her neck and pressed it hard.”

Meerut SSP, Raghubir Lal, told TOI that both Priyanka and Anju suffered “emotional deprivation and exploitation since childhood.” The two girls shared a room while studying in the Capital’s South Delhi Polytechnic. Both allege that the extreme move was triggered by years of harassment by their families.