11-year-old girl’s body found in Surat with 86 injuries, rape suspected

www.mangaloretoday.com

Surat, APril 14, 2018 (NDTV): Even as the nation struggles to come to terms with the brutality of the Kathua rape and murder case, another horrific incident has emerged from Surat. An 11-year-old girl’s body has been found with nearly a hundred injuries, including some on her private parts, reports news agency ANI. The girl was possibly tortured for at least a week before she was choked to death, as the injuries on her body range from a day to seven days old. Samples have been sent for forensics tests to determine whether she was sexually assaulted.

Most injuries, it seems, were caused by a wooden weapon, the forensic head of the Civil Hospital in Surat said, adding the girl was finally strangled.

"On conducting a post-mortem, we found wounds on her body which were between one to seven days old. She had 86 external injuries on her body," Civil Hospital forensics head Ganesh Govekar said.

The body was found by the police on April 6 at a ground in Surat’s Bhestan area, but the girl has not been identified yet.

"The body of the 11-year-old girl was found around 6 am near a road next to a cricket ground by people on their morning walk... We are trying to establish the identity of the girl," police officer KB Jhala said.

Amid widespread anger and protests in the country over the Kathua and Unnao rape and murder cases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Friday said such incidents could not be part of any civilised society and promised to make sure that the culprits do not get away. "As a country, as a society we all are ashamed of it (rapes)," PM Modi said of the crimes that have jolted the country.

"I want to assure the country that no culprit will be spared, complete justice will be done. Our daughters will definitely get justice," he added.

It was after the chilling details of the Kathua killing back in January emerged over the past week that the brutality of the crime hit the country. The eight-year-old girl, kidnapped by a group to allegedly drive out her Muslim Bakerwal community, was kept sedated and gang-raped repeatedly for days before her head was bashed in.

In the Unnao case, the Yogi Adityanath government has been blamed for trying to shield the BJP’s influential legislator Kuldeep Singh Sengar who was accused of raping a 16 year-old girl last year. The girl’s father was beaten by the lawmaker’s brother and sent to jail. He died on Monday.