Anand ST Das By

Express News Service

PATNA: The body of a 20-year-old engineering student in Ranchi was on Friday found burnt in her house. Preliminary investigation by police has indicated that she was raped and strangulated to death before being set afire.

People living in Booty More area of the Jharkhand capital saw smoke emerging from the house on Friday morning and called police. When they entered the house by breaking the lock put on the outside, they found smoke emerging from the girl’s severely burnt body. Police rushed the girl’s body to a nearby hospital, though locals said she was already dead. Her parents said they strongly suspected that she was raped and murdered before being set afire. Police sent the body for postmortem.

The girl, a fifth-semester student of RTC Engineering College in Ranchi, was alone in the house on Thursday night, said police. Her mysterious death by suspected rape and murder angered the students of her college, who took out a protest march demanding immediate arrest of the culprits. Ironically, the incident took place on a day when the country is solemnly observing the fourth anniversary of the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder incident of Delhi, which had shocked the nation and led to changes in rape laws.

“She was apparently raped. There was not a single piece of cloth on her body that bore deep burns in many parts. A metal wire was found around her neck, which shows that she was brutally murdered before being set afire,” said Nageshwar Mahto, her grieving father.

The girl had been living in the house with her sister for the past few days while her parents live in nearby Barkakana in Hazaribagh district. “She came to this house alone from Barkakana yesterday. Her sister was not with her last night when this incident happened,” said Mahto.

No suicide note was found near the body, said police. “We are collecting forensic evidence and hope to arrest the culprits soon,” said a police official from Sadar police station in Ranchi.