The dead body of a 16 year old girl, daughter of a migrant worker, was recovered this morning at around 7 am from a pond in Jorapokhar area, around 13 km from district headquarters. The corpse was recovered more than 50 hours after she went missing.

The body also bore acid burn marks, raising suspicion of murder after rape.

Police also recovered other articles belonging to the deceased, including a school bag, books, pen, pencil, sharpener, mask etc from the bank of the pond.

Irate over the incident, local residents carried out a protest at Jorapokhar police station under the leadership of Shamsher Alam, state executive committee member of Congress demanding immediate arrest of those behind the incident.

Talking to the incident site, Rajdeo Singh, Officer in Charge of Jorapokhar police station said, “Prima facie it seems that the murder has been carried out after rape. It seems that dead body has been dumped into the pond after carrying out rape and murder at a different site.”

“The face of the deceased bore burn marks and whether the burn injury has been caused due to pouring of acid or some other chemical will only be known after the post mortem. We have launched an investigation into the incident and those behind the incident will be soon behind the bars,” further said Singh.

A relative of the deceased while talking to media at the incident site said, “The girl went to attend a private tuition in nearby locality at around 3.30 pm on March 26 but didn’t return till 5 pm. We launched a search operation and contacted the private tutor who told us that the girl didn’t attend the class.”

“After carrying out a search in adjoining localities we went to Jorapokhar police station and lodged a missing case,” further said the relative of the deceased.

In a related development, the nude dead body of another 18 year old girl was recovered from Barbad village of Tundi block of Dhanbad yesterday evening from near a pond.

The family members of the deceased informed police that the girl went to the pond yesterday afternoon to bathe along with her mother. The mother left early while the girl was still bathing.

When she didn’t return after two hours, her mother reached the site to find her nude body lying in a field beside the pond.