Benglauru, Oct 10 : A man has been arrested in Karnataka's Kolar district for allegedly killing a 50-year-old mentally challenged woman and then having intercourse with the dead body, the police said on Thursday.

The incident happened in Mulabagal town of Kolar district.

The accused has been identified as Syed Suhail, an auto driver and a resident of Hydar Nagar locality in Mulbagal town.

According to the police, the accused had committed the crime on September 24.

According to police, the victim, a married woman with two children, had stepped out of her residence at 7.30 p.m. She also went to the market and other areas.

The woman, who could move around despite being mentally challenged, stayed back at the APMC market which operates till late in the night.

While coming back to her house at around 1 a.m., the accused auto driver noticed her and offered her a drop at the residence.

The auto driver, however, instead of taking the woman to her residence, drove towards an isolated place on the national highway.

Sensing something was wrong, the woman jumped out of the vehicle while taking a turn and confronted Suhail.

The auto driver did stop the vehicle but hit her with a stone on her head, following which she collapsed and died on the spot.

Following this, Suhail put her into his vehicle and raped her. Later, he dumped her body and escaped from the spot.

Her husband lodged a complaint with the police and eventually, after searches, the body was traced.

During the probe, the police collected the CCTV footage of the woman boarding the auto.

The police managed to track the registration number of the vehicle and eventually nabbed the accused.

Suhail who was hiding in the neighboring town, Chintamani.

The auto driver had stated that he had hit her with a stone to stop her from screaming. The postmortem report of the woman has confirmed that she had died after being hit by the stone. There were no external injuries found on her body and death had occurred due to internal injury.

The preliminary probe has revealed that her husband had married another woman but also lived with her.

The woman was taken to several hospitals for treatment of her mental health condition. Often she went out of the house and returned much later.

/IANS