Youth arrested for rape and murder of minors in Bengal

Calcutta, November 25 (IANS): A youth has been arrested on charges of rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in Gurap, Hoogly district of West Bengal.

The suspect will be produced in court on Monday and the public prosecutor will request his police custody.

According to statements made by the victim’s parents to the police, the girl went missing on Sunday evening. After she had not come home for a long time, the parents asked the neighbors if any of them had seen her.

Receiving information from an eyewitness who saw the girl entering the suspect’s house, the parents along with some other neighbors went there and started interrogating the suspect.

Suspicious of the suspect’s inconsistent statements, they informed the local police station.

After a thorough search, the police found the victim in the suspect’s home.

Police immediately took her to the local hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The victim’s body has been sent for post-mortem.

Of late, cases of rape or rape and murder have been seen frequently in West Bengal and in most of the cases the victims were minor girls.

The most talked about issue in the case was the gruesome rape and murder of a female junior doctor of the state-run RG Kar Medical College & Hospital in Calcutta inside the hospital premises in August this year.

The trial process in the case was underway, with civilian volunteer Sanjay Roy identified in the first Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chargesheet as the “sole prime accused” in the rape and murder crime.