Afsana murder: Clamour for job, compensation

Ranchi: The people of Pundag on Tuesday took out a candle light march from ISM Chowk at Pundag to Argora Chowk to protest against the killing of local girl Afsana Parveen. The protesters demanded compensation and formation of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the death of Afsana under mysterious circumstances. Afsana’s charred body was found in Lohardaga on Saturday. Akeel Ur Rehman of Central Muharram Committee of Ranchi said, “We demand a compensation of Rs 50 lakh and a government job for a member of Afsana’s family. Girls are becoming victims of atrocities every other day and we need strong action against the culprits.”
The Lohardaga police is waiting for the postmortem report to ascertain if Afsana was sexually assaulted before she was murdered and burnt. The student of Marwari College in Ranchi had gone missing on April 6.

Ranchi SP Aman Kumar said, “We have been tracking the girl’s movements on the day she went missing with the help of CCTV footages. However, due to a technical snag, the footage for Afsana’s movements in Ranchi is truncated.”

He added, “We have traced her movements from her home to Argora Chowk, where she reached by an autorickshaw. But, the CCTV at a shop in Argora Chowk has a glitch. Our team has sought 15 hours to restore the footages that will enable us to see where Afsana went and with whom from Argora Chowk. We suspect that she might have taken a train to Lohardaga from the nearby railway station as she was seen moving towards Kadru.”

Kumar said the Lohardaga police is probing the murder and Ranchi police is providing inputs on Afsana’s movement. “The CCTV footage has revealed that a youth was accompanying her when she crossed Argora Chowk,” added Kumar.

The Argora railway station, however, doesn’t have CCTV cameras and the shop owners around the railway station have so far failed to identify Afsana.

Officer in-charge of Kairo police station in Lohardaga, Ramashish Paswan, said, “We are relying on sources to gather information on the movement of Afsana in Lohardaga. Her family has told us that Afsana did not have a mobile phone with her when she left home. This is making retracing her journey very difficult since unlike Ranchi, there are lesser number of CCTVs in the shops in Lohardaga. For the time being, we are sifting through the phone records of her family in Pundag.”

“The nature of burn injuries suggests that the girl was set on fire after being killed. We are awaiting the postmortem report to confirm any sexual assault or rape,” he added.