The Tiruchi Rural Police on Tuesday ruled out rape in the death of a 14-year-old schoolgirl whose partially charred body was found at Adhavathurpalayam on the city’s outskirts on Monday evening.
“The death of the girl was due to burn injuries,” the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Tiruchi Range Z. Annie Vijaya said citing the findings of the post mortem done at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital here.
The body of the minor was handed over to her parents in the afternoon after completion of post mortem and cremated at Adavathurpalayam amid heavy police deployment at the village to prevent any untoward incident.
Ten special teams have been constituted to probe the case from various angles and the focus was now on how the victim suffered the burns, DIG Annie Vijaya told The Hindu on Tuesday. The Somarasampettai police had registered a case under section 174 (iii) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Investigating teams, after combing the scene of crime and its vicinity, had recovered a plastic bottle with kerosene odour and a match box.
Nothing concrete could emerge from the surveillance camera installed inside the saw mill behind which the charred body of the girl was found by her family members, said police sources.
Inquiries were being conducted with a couple of persons.
Ms. Annie Vijaya said intelligence teams had also been tasked with collecting evidence and the teams were on the job of reconstructing the scene of crime in an effort to achieve a breakthrough. The death under suspicious circumstances was being probed in various angles as there was no direct evidence, she said and adding that all out efforts were on to crack the case.
A heavy posse of police personnel was deployed at the village and in its vicinity as a fall out of the girl’s death.
P.Ve. Arun Sakthikumar, Superintendent of Police, Pudukottai, who has been investigating the death of a minor girl near Aranthangi recently, was also at Somarasampettai police station to assist the Tiruchi Rural Police in the case and in maintenance of law and order.
