Jind rape horror: Teen named prime suspect also found dead
KURUKSHETRA: An 18-year-old man, the police’s prime suspect in the brutal rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl in Haryana’s Jind district last week, was found dead in a canal near Kurukshetra late on Tuesday night.
The man was naked below his waist, but no external injuries were visible on his decomposing body found in the Bhakra irrigation canal, said Abhishek Garg, SP (Kurukshetra).
This discovery adds a dramatic twist to a case involving horrific violence and seemingly throws to the wind the police’s theory that the man was one of the culprits who had gang-raped and killed the girl. The girl’s body had been found in a semi-naked condition on Friday with a torn shirt the only clothing on her body, the autopsy report had said. Dr SK Dhattarwal, who had overseen the autopsy, said her injuries suggested she had been “brutally raped” by at least two persons before being killed.
The girl and the man, a Class 12 youth, were both Dalits who went to the same private school and took tuitions from the same teachers in Kurukshetra’s Jhansa village, less than 200 kilometres from Delhi. The two had gone missing after they left separately for tuitions late afternoon on January 9.
Garg said the investigators were probing the role of “strangers as well as known persons”, while admitting that there had been no breakthrough in the case. The theories being suggested by the police range from “honour killing”, which, they say, “cannot be ruled out”, to a “suicide pact.”
The man’s relatives had been rounded up for questioning soon after the girl’s disappearance. Members of his family, including his father, and some of his friends were detained till Wednesday afternoon. Tensions flared in Jhansa village soon after the body was released to his relatives, who initially refused to cremate the body alleging that they had been tortured in police custody but later relented.
Saying that the two teenagers were “in touch”, the SP said the investigators had established that two had left the village together and had headed towards the Bhakra canal.
“This has been confirmed by villagers who had last seen them,” he added.
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Such incidents are very unfortunate and I am myself deeply hurt. We will take strict action against all those involved ML KHATTAR,
Haryana chief minister
CHANDIGARH:
A Congress delegation on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to Haryana governor Kaptan Singh Solanki and sought imposition of President’s rule in the state, alleging a complete breakdown of law and order after two minor Dalit girls were raped and murdered in separate incidents.
The delegation, led by former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, comprised senior leaders Kumari Selja, state Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Kiran Choudhry and Mahila Congress’s national president Sushmita Dev.
They also demanded job for the next of kin of the victims.
On the allegations of the 15-year-old girl’s family that the Kurukshetra police delayed action on their complaint, Sushmita Dev said, “The governor assured us that he will take it up with the chief minister. He also assured us that he will seek a report from the chief minister on why such incidents were taking place.”“many gangsters from UP are now turning to Haryana considering it as safe zone,” the memorandum read.
On Monday, leader of the opposition Abhay Singh Chautala had demanded the CM’S resignation for failing to check rising crime.“it is unfortunate that such cases have become routine in Haryana and yet the government has not woken up to maintaining law and order,” he had said.
(With agency inputs)