20-yr-old girl found murdered; mob goes on rampage

The body of a 20-year-old Dalit girl was found here in a mutilated condition, triggering unruly protests by locals who ran amok at the bus terminus and held up traffic on the Jind-Gohana road for more than three hours today.
According to DSP Adarshdeep Singh, the body of the girl was found near a canal in the morning today in a mutilated state with locals saying that the deceased had been raped before murder.
The girl from the district's Baniyakheda village had yesterday come to Jind town to appear for her Junior Basic Training exam, Singh added.
Incensed by the death of the girl, people from her village held a demonstration with the body on the Jind-Gohana road before proceeding to the local bus terminus where they damaged 30 buses.

The mob also resorted to pelting stones at police and roadways staff when the latter tried to prevent them from setting the buses on fire.
Police had to then take recourse to a lathicharge to disperse the mob. A few of the protesters were also taken into custody, police said, adding that once the mob cleared, they took the body and sent it for a post-mortem.

"We tried to reason with the protesters that they should hand over the body to police that a post-mortem may be conducted," Singh said.
"The mob was told that without a post-mortem, police can make no progress in the case; but they would not listen and went on a rampage," he added.

Meanwhile, bus operators have shut down the terminus here saying that services would resume only after a compensation was announced for them in lieu of the damage caused by the mob in the morning.