In a murder unparalleled in gory violence since the 2014 Pathardi triple murders, the chilling discovery of a horribly mutilated body of a minor girl has led to tensions flaring in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district.
According to the police, the incident is said to have taken place on July 14 in the district’s Karjat tehsil when the girl, who was visiting her grandparents did not return home. Anxious search parties found her bicycle, and later her mutilated body in a nearby farm.
Irate villagers and activists took out a protest march on Sunday in Kopardi village (site of the murder) demanding stiff action against the accused.
The police said the medical report said her hair had been pulled out, her hands were dislocated from the shoulders, her teeth smashed and she was strangled to death after rape.
Three persons have been arrested in connection with the case while they are on the lookout for the fourth one. Two among the accused have been remanded to police custody till July 25.
The shocking incident has already acquired political hues with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)’s Dhananjay Munde demanding Ahmednagar Guardian Minister Ram Shinde’s resignation after they alleged that Mr. Shinde knew one of the arrested as allegedly evinced by a Facebook photo which shows Mr. Shinde with the accused.
Mr. Shinde, however, has refuted the allegations stating that he did not know the accused personally. He further stated that as the district’s Guardian Minister the case was being thoroughly probed and that the arrested, if found guilty, would be meted out the sternest punishment in the case.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, speaking in Mumbai, has defended Mr. Shinde remarking that the Facebook picture of Mr. Shinde’s was with a BJP party member, and “not any of the murder accused” as alleged by the NCP.
