Palamu (Jharkhand), June 11: A gruesome incident came to light in Palamu in Jharkhand state of India where a minor girl was raped, killed, and hanged on a tree. A case was registered on June 9 after the body was found.
According to the police, the victim was 16-year-old and she was a daughter of a local political leader. The prima facie evidence shows that the girl was raped before she was killed. One of her eyes of the girl was jutting out when the police found her body. She had been hung on a tree which police felt could be to mislead investigators to believe that she committed suicide.
The case has been registered in Panaki Police Station of Palamu. The girl was a student of class 10. According to her father's statement, his daughter went out on June 7 and did not return. The family was worried and lodged a missing complaint on the same day.
Police started investigating the case and on June 9 they got information that a body of a girl was found hanging on a tree in the forest of Lal Mati. A police team reached the spot and after investigating, it was found that this was the body of the missing girl.
The body was sent for postmortem to the Modini Ray Medical College at Modinagar. After the postmortem, the body was handed over to the girl's family and her last rites were performed late on June 9 evening. The girl was the eldest daughter of a local leader who has five children.
Police found a mobile phone on the spot. They arrested Pradeep Kumar Singh Dhanuk (23) based on the call data record. According to the police, this suspect is a married man and they are investigating other people's involvement in this case. When they found the girl's body her right eye was out and it looked like the girl was beaten up badly before the murder.
The girl's family claimed that she has been sexually assaulted before the murder.
Palamu SP Sanjeev Kumar said that they would know clearly if the victim was raped and murdered only after they received the postmortem report. We are investigating the case from every angle, he said.
From the evidence available, police are also exploring the angle of whether the victim was in a relationship with someone before her disappearance. Though the victim's family is denying this, we have heard that the victim had a fight with her family and she eloped from the house after that, SP Kumar added.