Class 9 girl student 'murdered' for objecting to lewd comments in Odisha

Mystery shrouds over the death of a minor girl, whose body was recovered from a pond at Barakul village in Jajpur district on Saturday. The deceased, identified as Amrita Das, was studying in class 9.

The family of the deceased suspects that Amrita might have been killed over the ongoing dispute over passing of lewd comments.

Minakshi Das, a relative said, “Some youths had passed lewd remarks at Amrita around two to three days back and she had retaliated. We suspect that the incident could be the fallout of this.”

The family members alleged that the youths had threatened to take revenge on Amrita. 

 As per the initial reports, Amrita had gone missing after her tuition last evening. As she did not return home, the family members along with some relatives and villagers launched a search operation and spotted Amrita’s bag and cycle near a pond at Nandipur chhak under Mangalpur police limits. Later, the body of the class 9 girl was fished out from the pond.

“As my daughter did not return from her tuitions, we launched a search operation. My wife then called the villagers and others who then found her bag at around 9 pm yesterday. We suspect that somebody has killed my daughter and dumped her body in the pond,” said deceased Amrita’s father.

"It has been common in our area that some youths are passing lewd comments at school and college-going girls. This had happened to my sister and she had also narrated it before us. But we had taken it lightly," said the deceased’s brother. 

“The body of a drowned person floats after 24 hours. But in case of my sister, her body was found floating in water after two hours since she went missing. We demand punishment for the culprits,” he added.

Meanwhile, police have initiated an investigation into the incident and the exact reason behind the student’s death is believed to be ascertained after the conduct of the post-mortem of the body.