The 15-year-old girl, Rubina Sahoo, whose body was recovered from a paddy field near Biswanathpur on Sunday evening, has allegedly been raped and murdered, preliminary investigation by the police has indicated.
With a love angle coming to the fore, three youths have been detained by the police.
According to sources, the victim girl had allegedly been involved in an affair with a boy of the same village Prubakachcha, where she had been staying. He was her classmate at Vivekananda Vidyapitha in the neighbouring Bahugram village and had also appeared in the Matriculation examination this year.
When the results were declared on June 28, Rubina had failed but the boy passed. The next day the girl went missing and the boy was also not seen. The boy, however, returned on Sunday and the girl’s body was found lying in the field with her throat slit in the evening.
While the post-mortem has been conducted and the report is awaited, police indicated that prima facie it appeared to be a case of rape and murder. The crime could not have been committed by one person alone and circumstantial evidence points to involvement of multiple persons, police said.
Police have rounded up the boy and two other suspects for questioning in a bid to obtain leads in the case.
Rubina had been staying with her maternal uncle Tulu Sahoo for studies as well as proximity to the school that she was going to.
Tulu Sahoo has lodged an FIR with the police after the body was found alleging that she was raped and murdered by the boy and his associates. A case has been registered by Jagatpur police on the basis of the FIR.