Thaindian News

Lucknow, June 13 (IANS) The Uttar Pradesh police Monday confirmed that the 14-year-old girl found hanging inside a police station compound was strangled to death. One constable has been arrested while 11 policemen and three doctors have been suspended, an official said.

The government has also transferred Superintendent of Police D.K Rai after the Mayawati government earlier Monday ordered a state police probe into the incident, which has caused a nationwide uproar.

Two policemen from the station are on the run.

The body of the girl was found hanging from a tree Friday night inside the Nighasan police station premises in Lakhimpur-Kheri district, about 200 km from here.

Divisional Commissioner Prashant Trivedi and zonal Inspector General of Police Subesh Kumar Singh visited the place Monday.

“The three doctors - A.K. Agrawal, A.K. Sharma and S.P. Singh - who have been suspended, were involved in carrying out the first post-mortem examiantion and reported asphixiation (choking) as the cause of her death,” Trivedi told reporters.

“Prima facie the post-mortem examination report looked motivated and a fresh autopsy was ordered by a team of doctors from Lucknow. The second report has confirmed that strangulation was the cause of her death,” Trivedi added.

“The Lucknow team of doctors has clearly stated that the hymen of the minor girl was intact, therefore we believe that there was no rape,” he pointed out.

According to him, “prima facie, it is a case of cold-blooded murder of a minor girl and sure enough some policemen are the culprits.”

Local sources claimed there was personal enmity between the girl’s father Intezar Ali and police constable Ram Chander.

They said Ali, a guard for a contractor working on some construction work inside the station compound, had caught the constable stealing some material from the godown and that Ram Chander had threatened Ali.

The girl was staying in a temporary hutment inside the station compound with her parents. When she failed to return until late Friday evening, her mother Tarranum went looking for her and eventually found her body hanging from a tree. Her father was away then.

Tarranum later told reporters that she was intimidated by the police when she went to lodge a complaint. They told her the girl had committed suicide, she said.

Special Director General of Police Brij Lal told reporters in Lucknow: “While one constable has already been arrested, police teams are trying to track down two others suspected to be involved in the crime.”

Meanwhile, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the case, saying the the CB-CID inquiry ordered by the UP government was just a “sham” and a “cover up”.