M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, April 8: The body of an eight-year-old girl was recovered in the dry sand bed of the river Koel early Friday morning.
Surjit Kumar, the sub divisional police officer, said the girl appeared to have been strangled to death. The cause of death could only be determined after the post mortem.
The deceased was taken to the MMCH Daltonganj for a post-mortem examination.
“When we and the Daltonganj town police found the body, it was face downwards,” said Uday Kumar Gupta, officer in charge of the Chainpur police station adding, “Near the body, the deceased’s slippers were discovered.”
According to the information, the strangulation appeared to be quite obvious. The girl was dressed in a shirt and jeans. There was no evidence of a criminal attack on her chastity.
The police also discovered an empty bottle of lichi juice, which may have enticed the girl to reach the dry sand in the river Koel, where she died.
“We did uncover one empty tiny bottle of lichi distant from where the girl’s body lay on the sand. The body wasn’t a buried body in the sand,” police officer Gupta said.
According to Gupta, the incident is believed to have occurred only last evening or night.
It’s been hours, and the body has yet to be identified or claimed. The girl could be from the neighbourhood, but no one has yet come forward to identify her or claim her.
“Neither our Chainpur police station nor the local police station has received any reports of a missing female.We, working with the town police, would undoubtedly solve the case of an innocent female child’s murder,” the officer stated.