People across Gaya, Bihar’s temple and Buddhist town, are unwilling to believe the local police’s claim that the gruesome beheading of a 16-year-old girl from the Patwa Toli locality is a case of honour killing.

Gaya SSP Rajiv Kumar Mishra on Thursday afternoon claimed that her parents and a butcher, their family friend, had killed the 16-year-old girl for eloping with someone outside their community on December 28 and returning home after spending three days with him. The SSP substantiated his claims with confessions of the trio who are said to have committed the crime.

Hundreds of locals on Thursday took to the streets yet again to demand justice for the minor through a CBI probe, even as her parents and a family friend were being sent to jail on charges of killing her for shaming the family’s ‘honour’.

“This is the cruelest incident we have seen in our lifetime. The killers acted like animals severing her head, chopping her limbs and pulling out her intestines. Our demand is simple, neither victimize innocent nor spare the culprits,” said Gopal Patwa, president, Gaya Weavers Association. He said only a CBI probe can bring the truth to light. “Gaya police is not doing justice.The victim’s parents were picked up in the wee hours and tortured to confess killing their own daughter. We were not allowed to meet them,” he lamented.

Police are trying to hush up the case to hide their failures,” said Pramila Patwa, local ward councilor and a protagonist who has been leading the protests seeking justice for the victim for the last one week.

Gaya’s Patwa Toli locality has, in the last decade, emerged as an education hub and breeding ground for IIT aspirants.

As report of the ghastly incident spread across town, people took to the streets demanding arrest of the killers. The protests have swelled by the day, with intellectuals, IIT-ians, activists, journalists, and even outsiders from other cities taking to the streets against the Gaya police and administration.

EOM

First Published: Jan 11, 2019 11:58 IST