16-year-old raped, murdered; locals protest over five hours

A 16-year-old school student was allegedly raped and murdered at Subhasnagar under Kakdwip police station in North 24 Parganas district, police said.

The girl went missing after she had gone out to take lessons from a private tutor on Friday evening. Her body was found near a pond yesterday, police officials said. The girl was apparently strangulated to death after rape, they said. One Gopal Hazra, who used to harass the girl, was arrested.

Local people demonstrated before Kakdwip police station for over five hours on Sunday and demanded that the medical report of the girl's body be shown to her family and police include rape charge against the accused besides murder and abduction. The demonstrators also called for immediate arrest of others involved in the crime. Villagers ransacked the house of the arrested person Gopal Hazra in the area. Several political parties from the CPI(M)'s women's wing to BJP made a beeline to the residence of the deceased girl and pledged solidarity.

TMC MLA and Sunderbans Development minister Manturam Pakhira also visited the house last night but faced agitation by a section of locals.

Highly-decomposed bodies of a couple were found in a flat in Kestopur in the northern parts of the city on Sunday, police said. Neighbours in the Talbagan area in the Baguiati Police Station limits today complained of foul smell coming out of the flat this morning and police broke open the doors to the bodies of the couple Rammohan Dutta (32) and Sukriti Tiwary (26). Both the bodies were found to be tied with a rope around their necks with the window grills, a senior officer of Baguiati Police Station said.