The Special Investigation Team instituted to probe the alleged murder of a five-year-old girl in Odisha’s Nayagarh district in July revealed that she was murdered and subsequently sexually assaulted.
The SIT has arrested the accused from Jadupur village and secured his custody for further questioning.
The murder triggered a massive political controversy in the State after the parents tried to immolate themselves in front of the Odisha Assembly last month.
Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress had come out with all guns blazing to corner the Naveen Patnaik government over the issue. The two parties have undertaken a month-long campaign demanding the resignation of the State Agriculture Minister Arun Kumar Sahu.
Opposition leaders had accused the Minister of shielding the main culprit. Parents and Opposition leaders initially alleged that an organ trade gang was involved in the murder. Faced with vociferous agitation by the Opposition parties, the State government was forced to order a court-monitored SIT probe.
Addressing a press conference in Cuttack on Tuesday, SIT chief and senior IPS officer Arun Bothra said the accused, who was known to the girl, had strangulated her to death after he was unsuccessful in sexually assaulting her on July 14 last.
After the crime, the accused concealed the body near an unused pond. The police team was pumping out water from the pond to recover the missing legging of the child in Jadupur on Tuesday.
According to SIT chief, the accused had confessed to his crime before investigating officers and this was accidentally video-recorded in a smart-phone of a police person who was known to him.
“We don’t have an eye-witness to the crime. We are, however, trying to build circumstantial evidence based on scientific proof,” he pointed out.
BJP’s national spokesperson Sambit Patra had moved the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights demanding its intervention. The commission had asked the State government to get the murder case investigated by any competent Central government agency.
