Woman gang-raped, killed by priest, aides

LUCKNOW: A 50-year-old woman, employed as an anganwadi helper, was gang-raped and brutally killed allegedly by a priest and his two accomplices under the Ughaiti police station limits of Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday night, the police said on Wednesday.

The two accomplices were arrested on Tuesday, while the priest was on the run, the police added.

According to a complaint lodged by the family of the victim, the woman went to a temple located on the outskirts of her village on Sunday afternoon and did not return. Later at night, the priest of the temple, identified as Satyaveer alias Satyanarayan,, and his two aides, Jaspal and Vedram, brought her body to the house in a sports utility vehicle (SUV) and informed the family members that she fell into a dry well inside the temple premises.

“The priest and his accomplices left the house hurriedly. We were shocked to see the condition of the body. The clothes on the lower part of the body were drenched in blood and a leg appeared fractured,” said a close relative of the family.

Seeing the condition of the body, family members informed police. After repeated calls from the family, the police eventually sent the body for post-mortem on Monday afternoon, the relatives said.

“The post-mortem report confirms rape, and there are injuries in her private parts and a fracture in a leg,” Badaun senior superintendent of police (SSP) Sankalp Sharma told news agency PTI. She suffered from a rib fracture too, he said, citing the post-mortem report. The left lung was also damaged because of heavy force, the post-mortem report said.

Chief medical

officer,