Bihar cops arrest five for murder of 14-year-old girl

PATNA: Five persons, including the prime accused, have been arrested for allegedly killing a 14-year-old girl, whose body was found from a water-filled land on the outskirts of village Rupnarayanpur Karnauti under Mahnar police station area in Vaishali on September 15.
Those arrested were identified as Dashrath Manjhi (28), Yadunath Rai (25) and Dashrath’s relative Salwa Devi (35) of Karnauti and Wakil Paswan (27) and Gautam Sahni (22) of village Bande under Patori police station area in Samastipur.They were sent to jail on Tuesday.
The victim’s mother had lodged a kidnapping case against unknown persons on September 14. The girl had left home on a bicycle at around 4am to attend her coaching class at Patori in Samastipur district, bordering Mahnar.
Vaishali SP Maneesh told this newspaper over phone that the girl’s cycle and her school bag were recovered on the confession of the arrested persons. Maneesh said Dashrath intended to rape the girl and roped in his four associates. He said the medical board, in its postmortem report, denied rape.
“Dashrath and three others intercepted the girl outside the village between 4am and 4.30am on September 14. Her body was recovered the next morning,” the SP said.
Maneesh said Dashrath and others strangled the girl with bare hands when she started screaming. He said Dashrath had told his associates that he wanted to kill the girl.