In a gruesome incident, a 14-year-old Dalit girl was allegedly raped and murdered for stealing mangoes from the orchard of an ex-army officer in Darbhanga, located 139 kilometres from Patna in northern Bihar.
This triggered massive anger among the localites, who went on a rampage as the house was ransacked by a mob after the incident came to light.
While the accused ex-army officer, Arjun Mishra is currently absconding, his wife was attacked by the mob, before being rescued and arrested by the police. An FIR has been filed against Mishra, his wife, and a young man who lived in their house.
The girl had left her home at 6 am in the morning and when she did not return for approximately two hours, her family members started searching for her. Subsequently, her body was discovered in an orchard near Mishra’s house with ligature marks on her neck, according to SHO Jaja Ali.
The alleged rape and murder of the minor triggered an outrage on social media as well as and the hashtag #JusticeForJyoti began to trend on Twitter.
There was a social media rumour that Jyoti Paswan, a 15-year-old girl who cycled 1,200 kilometres to take her father home from Delhi amidst a nationwide lockdown, was actually the victim here. The rumour has been debunked. While both belonged to Darbhanga, the victim here is not the “cycle-girl” whose story garnered international attention.
Published 05 July 2020, 17:25 IST