Three people were arrested on Monday, including the prime accused, Ananda Sardar, in the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl in Baruipur, in the southern fringes of Kolkata.
The autopsy report suggested rape and strangulation of the victim before throwing her in the pond where her body was found on Sunday, a day after the incident.
The autopsy report also suggests that the victim had been alive when she was thrown in the pond, and that she died due to drowning.
The incident took a political turn, after the body of the girl who had been missing since Saturday, was found on Sunday in a pond, prompting public fury on Sunday with railway tracks being blocked and tyres and wooden logs being burned to block roads.
A six-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) was set up to probe the incident. Prohibitory orders preventing more than five persons from assembling together were enforced in the area under section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari will visit the victim’s family in Baruipur on Tuesday and also meet the local Baruipur police.
“The state government will do whatever the victim's family has requested to get justice for their daughter," Adhikari said.
The rebel bloc of Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by Ritabrata Banerjee will visit Baruipur on Tuesday too.
Former CM Mamata Banerjee, took to the streets with a candlelight protest, with her MPs, MLAs and supporters holding placards seeking justice for the victim. Earlier in the day, four leaders of the Mamata camp of the TMC—including Dola Sen, Biman Banerjee and Pratima Mondol—visited the victim’s family in Baruipur.
This was Mamata’s way of marking her protest against the deployment of central security forces deployed outside her Kalighat residence—as well as that of her nephew Abhishek Banerjee—since Sunday night, allegedly to prevent her from visiting the victim’s family, to whom she spoke over the phone on Sunday.
Mamata marched past police barricades outside the lane of her house, held a short protest before going back to her residence, and chose not to speak on the issue.
The former CM also alleged in a Facebook live video that she was being kept under house arrest on Sunday due to the deployment of central security forces outside her residence.
The candlelight protest also coincided with Union Home Minister Amit Shah's Kolkata visit for programmes commemorating the 125th birth anniversary of the BJP’s founder Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee.
Shah laid the foundation stone for a 125-foot statue at Eco Park, apart from visiting the house of Mookerjee and delivering a speech at the Milan Mela Ground.
