
A team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday visited the place where the body of a teenaged alleged gangrape victim was cremated in West Bengal’s Nadia district on April 5 and collected samples from the spot.
The central agency, it is learnt, will conduct DNA tests on the arrested suspects, including key accused Braj Gopal Gayali (21), the son of a panchayat representative owing allegiance to the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
The investigators will match the suspects’ DNA with the samples collected from the place of occurrence of the alleged gangrape, officials said. Fingerprint experts have also collected samples from the scene of crime.
The victim was cremated without post-mortem or death certificate a day after she was allegedly raped in a birthday party in a house belonging to Braj Gopal. She was dropped at her house by a woman while bleeding profusely.
Of the three accused, Braj Gopal and one Prabhakar Poddar have been arrested by the police on April 11 and 12. Both were sent to 14-day police custody.
On Friday, the agency officials also visited Prabhakar’s house and took his clothes and mobile phone in their possession.
The girl’s parents have alleged that they were threatened and were forced to cremate her body. The FIR registered by the police also names the alleged victim’s father, a relative and a neighbour for “destruction of evidence”. Prabhakar was not named in the police FIR.
The case was registered under Sections 376(2)(G) (gangrape), 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.