An Indian man allegedly kidnapped and burned three of his brothers’ young daughters to death as he was jealous of them being married while he was still single, family members said.

The charred bodies of Akshaya, 9, Suri, 6, and Khushi, 4, were found near an engineering college not far from Nizamabad town, Andhra Pradesh, where their families had attended a wedding on Wednesday.

A bottle of petrol was found by police nearby.

‘It is a clear case of murder,’ said Nizamabad District Superintendent of Police Tarun Joshi.

The girls went missing in the afternoon and at 10.30pm alarmed family members received a phone call from their uncle, Narendra Reddy, 37, who told them he was 25 miles away in a town called Basser and ready to kill himself.

He had lured the girls away with chocolates, according to The Times of India, and told relatives that he was depressed about not being married, like his brothers.

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An Indian court on Monday found a dentist couple guilty of murdering their 14-year-old daughter and a servant five years ago, in a dramatic finale to a case that transfixed the country and tapped unease on both sides of the rich-poor divide.

Aarushi Talwar was found with her throat slit at the family home in Noida, an affluent town of new shopping malls and offices near Delhi, in 2008.

A day later, the body of the Nepalese family servant, Hemraj, was discovered.

Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were convicted in a local court in Ghaziabad, near Noida, and remanded in custody ahead of sentencing on Tuesday – they could face the death penalty.

Early in the investigation, police alleged Rajesh had murdered his daughter and servant in a rage after finding them in a compromising situation – the kind of crime more often associated with rural, conservative parts of India where ‘honour killings’ are not uncommon.

Naresh Yadav, a lawyer present in court, told reporters waiting outside that the couple and members of their family broke down in tears when the verdict was read out.

But the case was plagued with blunders from the start.

In the hours after Aarushi, was found dead in her bedroom, police named Hemraj as the prime suspect.

They even dispatched a team to Nepal to look for him.

But the housekeeper wasn’t missing – his body was discovered lying on a terrace above Aarushi’s room. It had been there the whole time.

The Talwars came under suspicion early on, and police said the manner of the girl’s death suggested she was killed with surgical precision, a clear nod to the Talwars’ medical profession.

‘The way in which Aarushi’s throat was cut points out that it was the work of some professional, who could be a doctor or a butcher,’ a top police official, Brij Lal, told reporters in 2008.

Police have offered several possible motives, including an honour killing.

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