Surat: Days after the horrific Kathua rape and murder case came to light, a similar tragic rape and murder of a minor girl between the age nine –to eleven was reported from Surat.
The minor victim was found dead in bushes in Surat’s Pandesara area on April 6 with 86 injury marks on her body including marks on the minor victim’s private parts, PTI reported.
A post-mortem report of the girl said she was held captive, tortured and raped before being strangulated to death.
Now fresh reports in the case say a man from Andhra Pradesh has come forward to claim the victim as his missing daughter who he says she went missing in October.
The Surat Police Surat police on Tuesday said it will verify the man’s claims by conducting a DNA.
“A person from Andhra Pradesh arrived in Surat today (Tuesday), and claimed that the deceased girl is his daughter who had gone missing in October last year. We will verify whether he had lodged a missing complaint of his daughter with the local police station in Andhra Pradesh. We will also carry out DNA test of the man and the girl. He had brought Aadhaar card of his daughter with him.
At present, we are working on his claims. Only after we get the DNA test reports, it would be confirmed,” said the Police Commissioner Satish Sharma.
Failing to find any information about the girl, the City Police announced Rs. 20,000 award for providing any information along with pasting her photographs on the trains bound for east believing the girl hailed from Odisha or Bengal.
“We have circulated the photograph of the rape-cum-murder victim to all the district superintendents of police and police commissioners in the country. At present, more details cannot be revealed, but we are probing the case further,” Sharma said.
The man who has arrived from AP is a farmer hailing from Prakasam district claimed to have filed a missing complaint of is daughter when she reportedly went missing from her school in October last year.
He also said that Prakasam police who received the photos of the victim from Surat police called him to check since the picture looked similar to his daughter.
Gujarat’s State Commission for Women on Tuesday had sought a report on the case. The commission’s Chairperson Leela Ankoliya said “We have sought a report on the action taken to identify the girl.”