Crimes against the fairer sex continued unabated across the state as a 17-year-old girl was raped and murdered in Kaushambi, while opposition to teasing of a Dalit girl led to the murder of one person and serious injuries to two others in Jaunpur.
In Kaushambi, Savita (17) of Malak Mohiddinpur hamlet of Puramufti, left home to attend the call of nature late Thursday evening. On her way, Rajesh alias Hero dragged her into a paddy field and raped her. The rapist then strangled her to death.
When the victim did not return home till late in the night, her family started searching for her and found her body in the bushes. They later informed the police about it.
Superintendent of Police of Kaushambi, Abhinandan, reached the spot and oversaw investigations wherein the name of Rajesh of the same village cropped up.
As the police closed in on his home on Friday morning, the accused tried to flee and to thwart the cops from chasing him, he even opened fire at them. In the retaliatory firing, Rajesh was hit on his leg and subsequently arrested.
During quizzing, he owned up the crime.
The police said that the accused was earlier booked for rape at Puramufti police station and sent to jail in connection with the case.
In Jaunpur, one person was killed and two others were seriously injured after they opposed the teasing of a local Dalit girl on Thursday night.
The Dalit girl from Chauhan Basti in Dhema hamlet of Badlapur was going to ease herself on Thursday night when some youths from Brahmin basti intercepted her and start teasing her.
When the girl raised an alarm, Dinesh Chauhan (25) came to her rescue but the youths attacked him with sticks and rods.
Some locals from the Dalit basti also rushed but they too were attacked in which Dinesh died while two others, identified as Narain Chauhan (50) and Pradeep (38), were critically injured. On being informed, the police along with senior officers rushed to the spot and shifted the injured to a hospital.
A case was registered but no one could be arrested so far.
Due to tension between the two communities, a heavy police force was deployed in the area.
Meanwhile in Bareilly, a man aided by his second wife killed his seven-year-old daughter and buried her in his house at Izzatnagar.
As per reports, Ravi Babu of Alok Nagar married Ritu after the death of his first wife about two years ago. On Thursday, they couple killed Kajal (7) and buried her in the house. After the cops came quizzing on a complaint of their neighbours, the couple said that they had buried their pet dog. But some kids informed the police that Kajal had died and was buried there. The girl’s cousin Suraj also lodged a police complaint alleging that his sister had been murdered.
Following orders by the district magistrate, the girl’s body was exhumed.
Ravi and his wife were detained and the matter was being investigated.
In Lakhimpur Kheri, the autopsy report of a three-year-old girl, who was found dead in a cane field, confirmed that she was raped before being murdered.
This is the third such incident in the district in three weeks.
The accused was nabbed in an encounter on Friday.
The girl’s body, which bore injuries on the head, was recovered from the vicinity of her village in Singahi area on Thursday, a day after she went missing.