CUDDALORE: A 24-year-old youth was arrested for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl whose body was found in suspicious circumstances at Parathoor village near Sethiyathope in the wee hours of Tuesday. The girl had been reportedly missing from Sunday night onwards. Initial police inquiries and postmortem report had suggested that the victim was raped before being murdered.According to sources, the girl, belonging to Dalit community, had been working at a cloth store in Bhuvanagiri. She had discontinued her studies after passing Class X.
Every day, after finishing work, she used to board bus to return home. However on Sunday, she didn’t return as usual. Panicked over this, her father Manimaran, a casual labourer, lodged a complaint on Monday with the Orathur police, who in turn had registered a missing case and started inquiring.
C Vijayakumar, Superintendent of Police, also arrived at the spot in the early hours to oversee the probe. The police suspected that the minor girl was raped before being murdered and her body thrown in the bushes. Doctors at the Chidambaram GH, where an autopsy was conducted, also confirmed that the girl was raped.SP Vijayakumar said that they found Manikandan of the same locality as the prime suspect and questioned him. Manikandan had been reportedly stalking the girl. He allegedly raped and killed her as she was refusing his love proposal.