Keonjhar: Two days after body of a 17 year-old girl was found hanging from a tree in Odisha's Keonjhar district, police have arrested four persons for allegedly gangraping and then murdering her. This is the third such incident that has rocked the State within a week, triggering massive public outrage on the rising crimes against women. 

The arrests were made on Thursday following a complaint by the father of the deceased and prima facie evidence.

A day prior to that, police had detained a 19-year-old youth, believed to be the prime accused, and hinted at involvement of three other miscreants. The accused Sagar Nayak of Badakamandra village was in a relationship with the minor girl for over a month, official sources revealed. 

Keonjhar SP Kusalkar Nitin Dagudu said the minor girl's father identified Sagar as the main culprit who carried out the crime with three accomplices aged 19, 27 and 42, all from the district. "DNA samples of the accused have been taken for profiling and comparing with that of the deceased," the SP added.

On Tuesday, the minor girl, a Plus II student from Tentalapasi village within Pandapada police limits of Harichandanpur block, was found hanging in a field near her house. While the exact cause of death had not been ascertained, family members alleged that she was gang raped and then murdered.

 "I had come home at around 7 pm on Monday. When I did not find my daughter, I called her up. She answered the phone call, said she was nearby and would return home soon. But when she did not come back by late night and her phone was not reachable, we suspected foul play and started searching for her only to find her body hanging the next morning. My daughter was gang raped and killed. This is not a suicide," her father had stated in the complaint. 

The incident comes in the backdrop of the horrific gang rape of a 20 year-old girl in front of her male friend in Gopalpur beach, a popular tourist destination in Odisha's Ganjam district. The shocking episode was followed by the alleged abduction and rape of a 31 year-old married woman by four men known to her family. 

 

 

 

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