A 25-year-old youth allegedly committed suicide hours after raping a minor girl at Gandakipur village in Kujang block of the district on Saturday.
The deceased was identified as Gopi Samal of Upar Sahipada in Gandakipur village.
Sources said Gopi called the eight-year-old girl, to his house on the pretext of performing puja in the morning when other members of his family were away. later, he locked the girl inside a room and raped her.
The minor girl returned home crying and narrated the entire incident to her family members. later, the girl’s father lodged a complaint against Gopi with the Kujang police.
later, police got the medical test conducted on the girl and reached Gopi’s house to arrest him. However, Gopi hanged himself from ceiling of his house with a lungi.
“Shame and fear of arrest might have driven the accused to take the drastic step,” said Kujang PS IIC Dilip Kumar Sahu.
Police seized the body of the deceased and sent it to Kujang hospital for postmortem.