12-year-old girl raped and murdered in Jharkhand, third such incident in a week

RANCHI: In yet another incident of rape and murder of a minor in the last one week, the body of a 12-year-old girl studying in Class 5 was found by her family members in the bushes outside their village in Dumka on Friday.

The incident took place at Thadi village under Ramgarh Police Station in Dumka, about 275 kilometres from Ranchi.

According to the victim’s family members, the girl had gone for her tuition class on her bicycle in the morning and when she did not return after a long time, they started searching for her and found her bicycle near a temple outside the village. When they started looking for her around the spot, the body was found in the bushes.

Police suspect it to be a case of gang-rape. The body has been sent for postmortem.

“Prima facie, it appears that the girl has been raped and killed after that by strangulation. Investigations are still on,” said Sub-Divisional Police Officer Animesh Naithani. Whether it is a rape or a gang-rape will be clear only after looking at the postmortem report, he added.

“Meanwhile, a seven-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) under Inspector of Kathikund Police Station has been formed for speedy investigation into the case,” said the SDPO. Police has recovered several pieces of evidence from the spot, he added.

The Dumka SP asserted that the culprits will be identified on the basis of the evidence collected from the spot.

Taking serious note of the incident, Chief Minister Hemant Soren has directed DGP MV Rao to take strict action against the culprits and initiate proceedings in a fast track court.

“Please take strict action against the culprits and inform. Jharkhand Police and District Administrations should also ensure that strict punishment must be given to the culprits through fast track courts after investigating the matter properly,” ordered Soren through his Twitter handle.

This is the third such incident of rape and murder of a minor girl in Jharkhand in the last week.

A girl studying in Class 5 was gang-raped and killed by five youths of her village who abducted and took her to the nearby jungles in Gumla on Saturday. Then, another minor girl who had gone out with her friend was gang-raped and killed while they were returning back to the village in Sahibganj on Sunday.

Meanwhile, launching an attack on the Hemant Soren government, former Chief Minister Raghubar Das said women are not safe in Jharkhand. “It is really shameful that there has been an increase in incidents of rape and murder of minor girls in Jharkhand, which is really frightening. Right from a four-year-old girl to the Sadhvi, no one is safe in this state,” said Das.