A 24-year-old married woman was raped and killed by unidentified miscreants at Jhadapokhari village under the Harichandanpur police station in the district on Thursday night.
The incident came to the fore after the woman’s body was found hanging from a tree in a cashew plantation near the village on Friday morning. The deceased was identified as Manguli Behera.
Sources said Manguli had married her lover Soren of Katarabeda village under the Ghatgaon police station about five years ago. However, she got separated from her husband due to some dispute three years ago and had been staying with her parents.
Her father had gone out of house. Finding Manguli and her dumb sister alone in the house, the miscreants dragged her to the nearby cashew plantation and raped her.
Prima facie, the culprits killed the woman by hanging her from a tree with her
saree after raping her. Police began an investigation into the incident.