PATNA: On January 6, a 16-year-old girl’s mutilated body was recovered a few hundred meters from her house.
The girl’s head had been severed, her face burnt with acid and there were deep gashes on her chest.
The brutal murder had led to massive protests in the city against police inaction and triggered a social media outrage.
While police initially suspected it to be a murder after the rape, no sign of rape was found in the autopsy report.
On Thursday, Gaya SSP Rajiv Mishra said that it appeared to be a case of honour killing. “According to the girl’s eldest sister, the victim had eloped with a boy on December 28 but she came back on December 31. After she returns, her father sent her away with one of his friends and she did not return home after that,” he said.
When cops recovered her body and called the family for identification, they refused to come to the police station.
Police became suspicious of the role of the victim’s parents as they refused to come to the police station to answer questions after the body was found.
During interrogation, the butcher confessed to killing the girl on the order of her father, Turaj Prasad. Later the girl’s parents confessed the crime.
“Her parents and a local have been arrested and forwarded to jail,” said a police official.