india

Updated: Jan 31, 2019 15:06 IST

The family of a 12-year-old girl, whose body was found in a field on Wednesday, has alleged she was killed after being gangraped in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district.

The incident took place in Ranitala area, about 231km north of state capital Kolkata. The Class 6 student went to a field near her home around 12:30 pm on Wednesday to hand over lunch to her father who was working there.

She didn’t return home after that and her body was found from a field around 200 meters away from her house around 8pm.

The girl’s father lodged a complaint at Ranitala police station, alleging his daughter was raped by more than one person before she being throttled.

He said he had no idea that his daughter did not reach home after giving him the lunch and was informed that she was missing around 4pm.

“There were several injuries and scratch marks all over the body of my daughter. Her hands were tied with a rope. The assailants shoved the sweater that she was wearing inside her mouth to prevent her from raising an alarm,” said the victim’s father.

”I am certain that my daughter was raped before she was killed. But I have no idea why. It’s also possible that they killed her to prevent any possibility of her identifying them,” the father said.

Officer-in-charge of Ranitala police station Samit Talukdar said they have started an investigation on the basis of the father’s complaint. “We have sent the body for autopsy to ascertain the cause of death,” Talukdar said.

An officer said on the condition of anonymity that the girl could have been raped before she was killed.

”The family is poor and the girl wasn’t wearing any ornaments. We are in the dark about the motive of the murder,” said Talukdar.

Bengal is one of the worst performing states when it comes to crimes against women.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the state accounted for 11.31%, 10.11% and 9.6% of all the crime against women in the country in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively. In 2012, West Bengal accounted for 12.67% of the total cases, making the state the worst offender in the country.