The IPS officer Arun Bothra-led Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Crime Branch has cracked the sensational case of sexual assault and murder of five-year-old girl Pari at Jadupur village in Nayagarh district and ascertained the involvement of one Saroj Sethy of the village in the gruesome acts.
Bothra told reporters here on Tuesday that the SIT had earlier suspected about the possibility of rape/sexual assault in the case on the basis of the fact that Pari’s recovered body had no bottom-wear and the leggings worn by the girl were missing.
A frock of the girl that was found beside the body packed in a gunny bag had semen stains on it. All the factors indicated towards rape/sexual assault.During the investigation, the SIT team collected information from around 120 households of the village about the typical timings of presence of family members in the houses. It was found that Saroj Sethy was alone in his house on the day of the incident, said Bothra.
While examining the mobile phone of Saroj’s sister that was being regularly used by him also, a popup notification of a news about rape and murder of a three-year-old child appeared on the device, which hinted that the youth had read/searched for similar content/news on the phone. This apart, he had deleted all Google search history on the phone except one tab entitled ‘How to delete search history’, the police official said.
The reaction of Saroj was ‘aggressive’ while he was being questioned in connection with the case and it intensified after he was informed that semen stains were found on the frock. While around 30 villagers agreed to undergo polygraph test without any hesitation, Saroj initially refused multiple times, Bothra said.
Making a startling revelation, he said Saroj strangulated Pari to death and tried to have sexual intercourse with the corpse but could not. However, he discharged semen on the frock of the girl, he said.
Detailing the evidences that have been obtained during the investigation, Bothra said Pari had gone to Saroj’s house, about 100 metre from her house, at around 10.30 am on the fateful July 14 to collect jamu berries. Saroj was alone in his house as his working mother and sister had left for their offices. Finding Pari alone, he took her to a room and removed her frock. When he was about to remove her leggings, she resisted and started screaming. So, Saroj strangulated her to death. Bothra also informed that Saroj is addicted to pornography, especially child pornography, and had watched such porn videos throughout the previous night on his sister’s mobile phone.
Further narrating the heinous crime, Bothra said that after his failed bid to have sex with Pari’s corpse, Saroj put the body along with the frock in a gunny bag and dumped it at a bush near a pond in the village and covered the bag with coconut tree branches.
Realising that he forgot to keep the girl’s leggings in the bag, he again went to his house to get it and threw it in the pond, which wa dried up to find the leggings. Though there was no eyewitness to this incident, Saroj has confessed his crime before two persons, of whom one has the audio and video recordings of the conversion.
During polygraph test, Saroj gave correct answers to all irrelevant questions but lied to all relevant ones, Bothra added.