Ranchi: Eight days after recovering the headless body of a woman from Jeerabar forest in Ormanjhi, Ranchi police on Monday released the photograph of one Sheikh Bilal as one of the prime suspects in the case.
Seeking information from the public to trace him, police said anyone providing clues about Bilal would be rewarded and the identity of the informer would be kept a secret. They also warned terse legal against those providing shelter to the suspect.
Ranchi SSP Surindra Jha said, “Bilal is likely to be prime accused in the murder case.”
Notably, Ranchi police faced an uphill task in identifying the headless body for the past seven days. Police had announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh for concrete information about the victim. Police searched a vast area around the spot, where the body was found, for the head but to no avail.
Eventually, police received information about a couple in Chatwal village in Chanho block whose daughter had gone missing for the past one-and-half month. When police approached the family, the mother of the missing girl told that her daughter has burns injuries on her leg which she sustained while cooking. When the injury mark matched with the headless body, police took blood samples of the couple for DNA matching with the body.
Though a report on DNA sampling is pending, police started their investigation and in due course zeroed in on Bilal.
According to the mother, her daughter had been staying with Bilal in Chandwe village under Pithoria police station. Their relationship had turned sour and after some quarrel and the girl had gone missing.
A case under sections 302, 324, 201 and 120 (B) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered with the Ormanjhi police station in connection with the crime. Various political parties have staged protests in the state capital, including an attack on the chief minister’s convoy, and demanded early arrest of the accused persons in the case.