M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, May 16: The Haidernagar police on Monday remanded a youth named Sheoshankar Ram in judicial custody on accusations of outraging the modesty of a 17-year-old girl, whom he also gagged to death.
According to the officer in charge of the Haidernagar police station Ajit Kumar Munda, the accused and the victim both hail from the same village Naukhela and were old acquaintances of each other.
On the intervening night of May 14-15, the girl was in the house with her little sister as her parents had gone for night-long participation in a marriage ceremony of their acquaintance away from their home.
The girl phoned Sheoshankar Ram to come to her the same night. Later, he had a wordy duel with the girl. He objected to her talking to other youths. The girl ignored his advice not to talk to any other boys, and the two had an intense fight.
Ram then pinned her down and gagged her. He even boasted of sexually assaulting her. When the girl became unconscious, Sheoshankar Ram escaped from the house sensing her dead.
However, some villagers saw this and raised an alarm and stormed into the house of the girl where she was gasping. After muttering some words, she died.
The police officer said the boy in his confession has admitted to having lost his power of reasoning when the girl whom he was courting love for a long, refused to accept not to talk to other youths on phone. This enraged him so much that he gagged her to death.
As the girl is below 18 years, police invoked sections of the POCSO act besides IPC against Sheoshankar Ram.
“Body of the girl was sent to MMCH Daltonganj for postmortem and further information of the incident will come to light only after the report comes in,” said police officer Munda.