A 15-year-old girl in Haryana, missing since last week after she left home for tuition classes, was found dead on Saturday with 19 severe injuries to her body and signs of unspeakable torture. Her liver and lungs had been ruptured and an object had been jammed into her body, doctors said.
Amid horror at the brutality of the crime, Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar said one of the attackers had been identified and would be arrested soon.
The Class 10 student, from a village in Kurukshetra, went missing on Tuesday. Her mutilated, half-naked body was found near a canal about 100 kilometres away, in Jind. It was covered just by a torn shirt, and there were wounds on her face, neck, lips and chest. She was believed to have died two days earlier.
“The body had many injury marks, the private parts were mutilated and there were lot of internal injuries. Signs of sexual assault are visible and looks like three-four people were responsible, a hard and blunt thing was inserted inside her, signs of drowning also found,” said a doctor in PGI Rohtak, SK Dattarwal.
He said it was apparent that the girl had struggled to escape but was gagged, and someone sat on her chest.
The girl’s father hit out at the administration. “My daughter was kidnapped and raped. She was tortured… If administration had done its job well, an incident like this would have never happened,” he wept.
The assault has been compared to the Delhi gang-rape in which a 23-year-old medical student — who came to be known as Nirbhaya — died after being gang-raped and tortured on a moving bus in December 2012.
Two special investigation teams led by senior officers have been set up to investigate the schoolgirl’s rape, said the police in Jind.
The body of another girl, 11, was found in a village in Panipat on Sunday, the police said.
The girl was allegedly kidnapped on Saturday evening when she had left her house to throw garbage in the village dump. She was raped and strangled, the police said.
Rahul Sharma, superintendent of police, Panipat, told news agency Press Trust of India that two men in her neighbourhood had been arrested.
Last month, a six-year-old girl was raped and killed in the state’s Hisar district. She had also been tortured with a stick.
(Agencies)
