Kheri Police have confirmed the young girl was raped
A 17-year-old girl, whose mutilated body was found near a village in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri district on Tuesday, was also raped, the police confirmed the same night.
The police had initially said the girl appeared to have been killed with a sharp weapon and that she had sustained injuries to her neck. The body was found near a dried-up pond, around 200 metres from her village, the cops added.
"Yes, the post-mortem report has confirmed rape. We are making all possible efforts to identify and arrest the accused. We hope to have a breakthrough soon," Satendar Kumar, Kheri's police chief, said.
According to the relatives of the girl, she left home on Monday to visit a neighbouring town to fill up a scholarship form. However, when she did not return the family informed the police.
"I really don't know what to say or whom to suspect. She left around 8.30 AM on Monday. We do not suspect anyone," her uncle told the media.
This is the second rape and murder of a teenage girl from this district in the past 10 days.
On August 15, a 13-year-old girl was raped and killed. Her body was found in a sugarcane field that belongs to one of the accused. Two men from her village have been arrested.
Her father alleged his daughter had been strangled, and had her eyes gouged out and her tongue cut off.
The police said the post-mortem report, which was released a day later, did not show her eyes had been gouged or that her tongue was cut out. The police said the autopsy did mention rape and strangulation.
"Her eyes were not gouged and tongue was not cut. The claim is not true. There is nothing in the post-mortem report to suggest this. There were scratches near the eyes, likely due to the sharp sugarcane leaves where the body was found," Satendra Kumar had said.
The girl had gone missing on the afternoon of August 14. The incident took place around 130 kilometres from Lucknow, in a village close to the Nepal border.
In a tweet addressed to the state's Governor Anandiben Patel, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday wrote in Hindi: "Respected Governor, the situation of law and order situation for safety of women has become very bad. A girl was on her way to fill up an online form in Lakhimpur when she was raped and killed. Such incidents are happening everyday now. I hope you will understand the seriousness of the situation and take the matter into consideration."