Pradipsinh Jadeja, Gujarat Minister of State for Home, said on Monday that the minor girl from Surat whose body was found ten days ago with more than 80 injuries could be from a state outside Gujarat.
According to reports, the minister as well as Surat’s ACP (Crime) RR Sarvaiya expressed possibility that the 9-year-old girl might be from Odisha or West Bengal.
The police scanned the data of the missing children of several states to identify her but said that the victim’s identity has not yet been established. The minister assured that the perpetrators of the gruesome crime would not be spared.
On Monday, two teams of the Ahmedabad Police’s Crime Branch arrived in Surat to assist with the investigations.
The police had found the body on 6 April at a ground in Surat’s Bhestan area.
According to the media reports, the post-mortem report of the minor has revealed that she was raped and tortured before being strangled to death.
The post-mortem report also revealed that she was tortured for more than six days as the 86 external injuries she sustained were inflicted over a week. Most of the injuries were caused by a wooden object, media reports say.
The police are currently scanning the list of the missing persons to establish girl’s identity and to find out details about her family.
A case has been registered under sections 302 (murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 376 (rape) of the IPC and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act against unidentified accused.
Read More: 9-year-old unidentifed girl raped, killed; body with 86 injuries found
The police have sent DNA sample taken from the girl’s body to the Forensic Sciences Laboratory for identification.
The Surat crime came even as the nation grappled with the horrors of an 8-year-old girl in Kathua district of Jammu-Kashmir.