Guwahati: A shocking incident reported on Saturday in a village of northern Assam’s Biswanath district. A minor girl was allegedly gang-raped and killed by seven friends, all of them juveniles.
The police arrested all the accused who had appeared for their Class 10 board examinations earlier last month.
The body of the 12-year-old girl, reported missing since Friday evening, was retrieved from a nearby forest on Saturday. All the accused and the victim are from the same area.
According to the locals, the accused had lured the girl by inviting her for dinner and instead took her to a forest where they gang-raped her. Later, they hung the body from a tree to make it appear a case of suicide.
An uncle of the victim told journalists that when she had not returned home till late evening on Friday, her family members and the locals conducted a search but could not trace her.
“We sniffed the hand of two boys from the village in her disappearance and conducted a search for them the next morning. We spotted them in the forest but they fled the place as soon as they saw us.
“Later, we called the police and scouted the jungle. Soon, we discovered her body hanging from a tree,” the uncle said.
Alleging that she was raped by the seven boys, he demanded a magisterial probe into the incident and death for the culprits.
The police said the body was sent for autopsy and they were awaiting the medical report.
“Right now, we cannot say if she was raped. We haven’t received the report of medical examination as yet,” Sub Divisional Police Officer Tilak Das told this newspaper.
“We have registered a case based on a complaint lodged by the girl’s father. We have arrested all the accused persons and interrogated them. We will produce them in the court,” he added.