Purulia:
The body of a six-year-old girl, missing for two days, was found stuffed in a bag from the home of her neighbour, which led outraged villagers to ransack it and attack the police in Purulia district, police said today.
The girl Tamalika Deoghoria went missing two days ago after her parents left her at home and went to a temple at Munsifdanga village in the juridiction of Raghunathpur police station, subdivisional police officer (SDPO) D Bhattacharjee said.
The girl, a kindergarten student, had informed her parents that she would go to the house of their neighbours Malay and Piya Ghosh, he said.
When she did not return home, her parents enquired from their neighbour and were told that the girl had not visited them, the SDPO said.
When a search was launched in the jungles and water bodies nearby, the neighbour Malay Ghosh also joined in, he said.
The Ghosh couple then packed suddenly to leave for Asansol in their car which made villagers' suspicious who later informed the police, Bhattacharjee said.
The police took the couple for questioning where they claimed that the girl had fallen ill and died after being given a glass of soft drink, they panicked and they hid her body, he said.
The police discovered the girl's body stuffed in a bag hidden inside an almirah when they searched the couple's home following which they were arrested, he said.
When the news of finding the girl's body spread, the villagers ransacked the house and pelted stones at police when they tried to intervene, Additional SP C Sudhakar said.
The police resorted to lathi-charge and used teargas on villagers to control them, he added.
The officer-in-charge of Raghunatpur Sadhan Pathak and the SDPO were injured in the stone-throwing incident, Sudhakar said.
The situation was peaceful today, he added.