KOLKATA: Mystery shrouds over the death of a 17-year-old girl in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district on Sunday. Her nude with multiple injury marks was found lying behind the residence of her neighbour at Gaighata in the district this morning.
Gaighata police station have started an investigation and one Prahlad Das (23), relative of the deceased, has been detained by police for questioning. Later, Das has been arrested and produced before the court by police officials probing the case.
After preliminary investigation, police suspected that the girl, who was a student of class XI, might have been raped and murdered.
According to local sources, the girl along with her family members, friends and relatives on Saturday night had gone to see a musical show in the area close her residence.
Family members claimed that she received a phone call from someone around 11.30 pm and left the venue of the show and didn’t come back. With sheer anxiety, they conducted search operations in the nearby areas throughout the night. They found her nude body carrying multiple injury marks lying behind the house of her neighbour this morning.
One of her relatives, who had gone to see the programme said, “We came back home and heard that she didn’t come back home. I tried to contact her over mobile but it was in ‘call waiting’ mode. We thought that it might be a network trouble and went to sleep. We got the unexpected sad news this morning.”
Bidisha Kalita, superintendent of police of Bongaon police district, told reporters, "The body of an adolescent girl was recovered from Gaighata area on Sunday morning. Based on the complaint lodged by her family members with the Gaighata police station, a case has been registered."
"Preliminary investigation reveals that she might have been raped and murdered. The body has been sent for post-mortem and we can confirm about the cause of her death and injury marks after getting the autopsy report."
"A medical board has also been formed to probe the case. Forensic team has been asked to visit the place of occurrence to collect samples related to the incident." She said.
"Videography will also be done during the post-mortem examination. We are also verifying whether there was any relationship between the victim and the accused. The investigation will also explore whether some others are involved in the incident," she said.
Local MLA Subrata Thakur from Gaighata told the media, "We strongly condemn the incident. One person has been arrested and exemplary punishment must be given to the person or persons whoever is probed involved in the heinous incident."
