Bengal: Matigara girl murder accused sent to 14-day judicial custody

The class 11 student was kidnapped by the accused and taken to a dilapidated house, where he bludgeoned her to death with a stone after she resisted his attempt to sexually assault her.

A man, accused of abducting a school-going girl, and bludgeoning her to death after a failed attempt to sexually assault her in Matigara area of Siliguri city in northern West Bengal, was sent to 14-day judicial custody.

The accused, who was in 14-day police custody, was on Monday produced before the Siliguri Sub-divisional Court, which remanded him to fortnight-long judicial custody.

Last month, the class 11 Nepali-medium student was kidnapped by the accused while she was returning home from school and taken to a dilapidated house, where he bludgeoned her to death with a stone after she resisted his attempt to sexually assault her. Her body was found later and he was arrested. Various organisations staged protests on the court premises, demanding stringent punishment for the accused.

Upon his production before the court, the accused was first sent to 10-day police custody, and later again to four-day police custody.

Large-scale protests, including bandhs, have been organised earlier in both Siliguri and the hills of Darjeeling and Kalimpong in protest against the incident.

Governor C V Ananda Bose, accompanied by BJP's Darjeeling MP Raju Bista, had met the family members of the girl and said that multi-pronged approaches must be taken to ensure that such ghastly incidents don't recur.

In an apparent dig at the TMC government, he had said that "there cannot be Kanyashree without kanya's life".

Kanyashree is flagship scheme of the Trinamool Congress government aimed at reducing school drop-out rates and early marriage of girls.