The body of a 16-year-old girl, daughter of a local BJP leader, was found suspended from a tree in Jharkhand’s Palamu district on Wednesday. The girl’s right eye was gouged out before she was killed. Her family has alleged that she was gangraped before being murdered.
One person, Pradeep Kumar Singh Dhanuk (23), has been arrested as the prime suspect, and he could have had other accomplices, police say.
As per an India Today report –
“The girl, a resident of Budhabar village under Panki police station limits, was the daughter of a local BJP leader. She was a student in Class 10. The girl’s body was cremated at the local crematorium on Wednesday evening. She was the eldest of the BJP leader’s five children.
A preliminary analysis of call data records (CDR) of a mobile phone recovered from the scene of the crime has led to the arrest of one Pradeep Kumar Singh Dhanuk (23) in connection with the case. Dhanuk, the primary suspect, is a married man and could have had accomplices, said the police.
According to the girl’s family, she went missing after leaving home at 10 am on June 7. Ashok Kumar, station in-charge (SI) of Panki police station, said the girl’s family had filed a missing persons complaint on Tuesday. The police were searching for her when locals found her body hanging from a tree in the forest near Budhabar village, he added.
The girl’s body was found suspended from a tree using a cloth, with her right eye gouged out. Officials suspect that she was mercilessly beaten before the culprits killed her and hung her body from a tree in order to make it appear like a case of suicide.
Her body was sent to the Medini Rai Medical College in Medininagar for a post-mortem on Wednesday. The girl’s family alleged that she was sexually assaulted by the murderers.
Palamu Superintendent of Police (SP) Sanjeev Kumar said the post-mortem report will establish whether this is a case of rape followed by murder.”
Jharkhand BJP spokesperson Pratul Shahdeo said the party would demand an independent probe if the police investigation is unable to quell the grieving family’s doubts.
In light of the brutal post-poll violence unleashed all over Bengal against BJP supporters and workers by ruling TMC goons, and seeing the abysmal response of the Indian State in countering that state-sponsored pogrom, are we now seeing the ‘Bengal model’ being applied in other non-BJP ruled states? This is a concern that many are raising.
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