Youth arrested for abduction, death of minor girl in Odisha capital

Reported by Sanosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, May 7:

Government Railway Police (GRP) arrested a 25-year-old youth from the Odisha capital in connection with the abduction of a 14-year-old minor girl, who died of burn injuries under mysterious circumstances three days ago.

The accused was identified as Surendra Kumar Pradhan of Anandapalli village under Sarankul police limits in Nayagarh districts.

After a day-long search, GRP nabbed the youth from the city and slapped charges under sections 363, 304 (A) of IPC against him.

Railway police had registered a GRPS case- 56/15 on Wednesday night after receiving a complaint lodged by the father of the deceased Suresh Mandi, a native of Ichhapur in Andhra Pradesh at present staying in Railway Colony here.

On Thursday, GRP took the accused to a house at the railway colony at Sarakantara in Retang on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar where he had kept the minor as part of the exercise to receate the sequence of events leading to the girl’s death.

Based on information provided by Surendra during interrogation, police has said it was a case of accident, not murder. The girl died when a stove burst, it has said.

Family members of the girl, however, are not willing to buy the accident story and insist that it was a clear case of murder. The girl had been murdered after being gang raped, the family suspects.

“We have no doubt that Surendra was indeed responsible for the girl’s death. But we have not got any evidence of murder so far. If it is proved that the girl had been raped before her death, the rape charge acn be added at a later stage,’ GRP IIC Soubhagya Swain said.

Surendra will be presented in a local court today.

According to the FIR, Surendra, working as a supervisor of a contractor, had abducted the class-VIII girl from the Railway apartment behind Bhubaneswar Railway Station on May 4.

During investigation, police had come to know about the location where the minor girl was kept. However, after reaching the house on Tuesday morning, police found that the girl had been set on fire. She was rushed to the Capital Hospital and later to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack where she succumbed to her injuries on Wednesday morning.

Police handed over the body to the family members after the post-mortem.