Nabarangpur minor girl not raped, but killed: Police

The Odisha Police on Tuesday said the postmortem report of the 16-year-old girl, whose body was found in a paddy field in Nabarangpur district on November 13, said that she was not raped as alleged, but murdered.

DIG (Southern Range) Satyabrata Bhoi along with Nabarangpur SP Kusalkar Nitin Dagdu visited the victims family on Monday and read out the post-mortem report which stated that the girl was not raped but she died due to strangulation.

"We have met the family members of the victim and informed them about the findings of the post mortem report," the DIG told PTI over phone but refused to divulge the motive of the murder.

"Since the matter is under investigation, it is not possible to speak on the motive of the crime," Bhoi said.

The body of the girl was found in a paddy field close to Kosagumuda on December 13 by local people. The girl was earlier kidnapped when she went to attend nature's call.

Two jean trousers and a pair of sandals were also found near the spot. Following this, her family members had alleged that the girl was raped and murdered. The girls body also carried injury marks, the family members said.

"We reject the report and demand that police exhume the body and conduct postmortem again. Circumstantial evidence at the spot shows that the girl was raped and murdered. But the postmortem is talking of strangulation only without mentioning anything about rape," a relative of the girl said demanding arrest of all accused persons before January 4, 2020.

When the Congress observed a Nabarangpur district bandh protesting alleged police inaction in the case, ruling BJD general secretary Sanjay Dasburma in Bhubaneswar had claimed that the opposition has been agitating on a non-issue indicating that the girl was not raped as alleged.

Meanwhile, former Congress MP Pradeep Majhi said: "If the post mortem report was made public on Tuesday (December 31) how come the BJD leader knew in advance that the girl was not raped. This indicated that the post mortem report has been tampered. We demand post mortem again by a neutral body after exhuming the body.