The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has registered a case in connection with the horrific rape and murder of a 13-year-old visually impaired girl at a village in Odisha on June 5.
And the gruesome incident bears a chilling similarity to the brutal gangrape cum murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16.
Supreme Court counsel and rights activist Radhakanta Tripathy filed the petition pointing out that as per the reports, the girl was sleeping outside her house at Beldal village of Puri district when she was abducted.
She was then taken to the Puri-Konark Marine Drive road and raped. Later, the accused tried to strangulate her and then forced an iron rod inside her private parts. And the victim girl bled to death as a result of the grievous injuries sustained in the brutal assault.
A Class V student of the Bhubaneswar-based Bhimabhoi school for the physically challenged students, she had come home for the summer holidays and was sleeping outside due to simmering heat.
Meanwhile, the postmortem report revealed that the girl had died due to profuse bleeding caused by brutal assault, which also had damaged her kidneys.
The petitioner averred that the accused had killed the girl to destroy the evidence. Moreover, it was pointed out that the her frantic cry for help fell on deaf ears since nobody was around at the time of the incident.
According to Radhakanta, inadequate security was responsible for the tragic incident.
With these averments, he sought an independent and impartial investigation into the case and a directive to the state government to pay compensation to the kin of the deceased.
Radhakanta also sought enhanced security at the tourist hot spot.