JOIN USThe police in coastal Odisha district of Puri on Friday detained and questioned a man in connection with the alleged gang-rape and murder of a minor blind girl in a village near the temple town of Konark.
“We suspect the man to be the main culprits in the tragic incident. A medical test will be conducted on him after interrogation,” said a senior official of the district police. The incident has already triggered tension in the area.
Puri Superintendent of Police (SP), Anup Sahu said they were hopeful of cracking the case soon. “A detailed investigation is already on and we are hopeful of cracking the case shortly,” Sahu said.
The dead body of the 15-year-old girl was found in a cashew nut orchard near the Puri-Konark marine drive on Thursday. The police had recovered a pair of shoes and an empty liquor bottle from the spot.
The girl, a student of government run Bhimabhoi blind school in capital Bhubaneswar, had gone missing from the thatched house of her father in Beladal village since Wednesday night. She had gone to the village to spend the summer vacation.
According to her father, around mid-night on Wednesday he found the main door of his house opened and the girl missing. He and other villagers searched her throughout the night till her body was recovered inside the cashew plantation on Thursday morning.
Angry villagers blocked the Puri-Konark marine drive for several hours on Thursday demanding immediate arrest of the culprits and adequate compensation for the girl’s family. The villagers had withdrawn their agitation after Puri SP and other district officials reached the spot and gave an assurance to look into their demands. The post mortem of the girl’s body was conducted on Friday.