A middle-aged mother of three killed a youth, who, she alleged, had been sexually tormenting her, and subsequently “surrendered” to police in north Bihar’s Vaishali district on Monday night.

The woman said she asked the police to arrest her while confessing that she had killed her tormentor Pankaj Patel (25) in “self-defence”.

The police and relatives of the deceased have, however, refused to buy the woman’s version. The police have alleged that Pankaj, a neighbour of the woman, was done to death in a “cold-blooded fashion” by the lady and her relatives.

The police have also rejected the woman’s claim that she surrendered. “We arrested the woman at Munshi Chowk, half a kilometre away from her Imadpur home, on a tip-off given by the murdered man’s relatives. We have her booked under sections 302 (murder) and 34 (collective intention to kill) of the Indian Penal Code,” station house officer of Baligaon police station, Rajesh, said. “The FIR has been lodged and the woman has been remanded in jail. We are searching for her relatives.”

The woman told the police that her neighbour Pankaj intruded into her house at 9.30pm on Monday and forced himself on her when she was asleep in her room. “I raised an alarm. But my family members could not hear me as they were watching the IPL match on TV in the verandah. Then I hit my tormentor with an agricultural tool,” the woman told the police.

The blows, she said, proved fatal for Pankaj. Her relatives locked the house and decamped, and advised her to surrender before the police.

Pankaj’s mother Sumitra Devi, in her FIR, has in turn alleged that her son went to the woman’s house around 8.30pm on the invitation of her husband to watch the cricket match. He didn’t return.

Pankaj’s body bore multiple injuries and it was later sent to the Hajipur Sadar Hospital for post-mortem.

The SHO said preliminary investigations had revealed that Pankaj had an illicit relationship with the arrested woman. “The woman’s husband and her father in-law had earlier objected to Pankaj’s frequent visits to their house,” he added.

Vaishali superintendent of police Suresh Prasad Choudhary said: “It is a case of murder in cold blood. Instructions have been issued to the SHO not to be lenient in such a case,” he told The Telegraph.

Rajesh, however, kept mum over the police’s reluctance to send the woman for medical examination before her production in the court. “The statement of the woman is being verified,” he added.

Chairperson of the state women’s commission Kahkashan Parveen said she would look into the matter. “I will personally talk to the SP and enquire about the incident. Thereafter, we will decide what to do.”