A highly decomposed body of a teenaged school girl was found in a jute field on Saturday in a Murshidabad village prompting her family to allege that she was murdered after being gangraped. This gruesome crime came to light on a day when state law minister Chandrima Bhattacharya claimed that women in West Bengal were safer than in other states in India.
This was the fourth incident of rape and murder of college and school students in the state in the past one week.
A second year college girl was gangraped and murdered in Barasat’s Kamduni on June 7; a school student was gangraped and killed in Krishnaganj in Nadia on June 11 and a 13-year-old was killed after being physically assaulted in Gaighata in North 24 Parganas.
The discovery of the body on Saturday sparked outrage in Sonadanga village in Ranitala police station area in Murshidabad. The police has started a murder case. “We have recovered a highly decomposed body of a girl and have started a case against Hakdar, his father and some other family members,” Murshidabad SP Humayun Kabir said.
The accused and his family had fled home. The elder brother of the victim Montu Sheikh said that she went missing at around 8 pm on June 11.
The family of the girl frantically searched for her and on June 12 lodged a complaint with the Ranitala police station voicing their suspicion that she might have been kidnapped by the accused.
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Teacher held for sex abuse of 3 minors
Rajib Chowdhuri
Kolkata, June 15
A school headmaster was arrested by the Pragati Maidan police on Saturday for allegedly abusing three minor girl students for the last four days in Kolkata.
Bijoy Sau, the alleged culprit, works as the headmaster at a private school at Canal South Road near Beliaghata. He is a resident of Sonarpur in South 24 Parganas. Two victims are students of Upper KG while another is of Class 2, said a senior officer of the Pragati Maidan police station.