TIRUCHI
The partially charred body of a 14-year-old girl was found at Adhavathurpalayam on the outskirts of the city on Monday evening sparking tension.
The victim, a class IX student, had left home in the afternoon apparently to relieve herself and did not return home. Police suspect that the girl could have been murdered but said that only the post mortem report could establish the cause of her death.
Her family members had searched for her after she had failed to return home and found her in a burnt state behind a saw mill in the evening. As news about the death of the girl spread, locals rushed to the spot.
According to police, the upper part of the girl’s body was found burnt. Angry villagers resorted to a protest and damaged the windshield of the ambulance that came to the spot to shift the body to the mortuary of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital.
Deputy Inspector General of Police, Tiruchi Range Z. Annie Vijaya, and Superintendent of Police, Tiruchi, Ziaul Haque, rushed to the crime scene and conducted inquiries.
The DIG said it was a death under suspicious circumstances and added that scientific evidence had to be collected. Special teams led by a woman Deputy Superintendent of Police were probing the case from various angles, Ms. Vijaya said. The girl’s father Periyasamy was running a hardware shop at Ariyavar.
This is the third murder of minor girls reported in recent months in the Tiruchi range comprising Tiruchi, Pudukottai, Ariyalur, Karur and Perambalur districts. Two cases were reported in neighbouring Pudukottai district, including the murder of a minor allegedly by her father and a few others in a suspected case of human sacrifice near Gandharavakottai in May. A few days ago, a seven-year-old girl was raped and murdered at Embal village.