The family members of a young woman, who had been missing since Friday evening and was found dead on Sunday in Baruipur, alleged that she had been gang-raped and killed.

The woman had befriended a youth through social media and went out to meet him on Friday evening, the police said. She was reported missing the same night.

Her body was found near her Bariupur home, around 30km from the heart of the city.

Based on the family’s complaint, the police have arrested the “Facebook friend” — identified as Ajay Mandal — and another man and charged the two with murdering the woman. Charges of gang rape were not slapped till Monday evening.

The superintendent of police, Baruipur police directorate, Palash Dhali, said that according to the “preliminary post-mortem opinion”, the body had no signs of sexual assault or external injuries.

“The cause of the death is drowning. No signs of sexual assault or external injury marks have been found on the body, according to the preliminary post-mortem opinion. We are yet to get the post-mortem report,” Dhali told Metro on Monday.

The woman, originally a resident of Narendrapur, had recently shifted to her maternal uncle’s house in Bariupur, the police said.

According to the woman’s family, she left home around 8pm on Friday after receiving a call from her friend.

Her phone was switched off from 11pm the same night. She failed to return home the next day.

“My niece received a call around 8pm. After that she left home. Later, we learned from the police that the call had come from that youth. We have reasons to believe that he is involved in gang rape and murder,” the woman’s maternal uncle told this newspaper on Monday evening.

On Sunday morning, people in the neighbourhood spotted her body floating in a small pond inside a fruit orchard in Baruipur.

The family has alleged that the young woman was gang-raped by the prime suspect — the “Facebook friend” — and his friends before she was killed.

The police said the prime suspect lives in the same neighbourhood as the victim’s maternal uncle.

“He has a bad reputation in the neighbourhood. We have reasons to suspect him and based on that, he has been picked up. One of his associates has been arrested, too,” said a senior officer of the Baruipur police directorate.

Many people — young and old — have fallen into traps after trusting persons befriended on social media.

Several cases have been reported where a social media “friend” had either cheated a person, blackmailed him or her or even drugged that person to rob valuables.

“There are cases where elderly citizens or young people are trapped into a virtual friendship and then blackmailed with intimate photographs for money. We always advise people against meeting virtual friends alone without verifying their background,” said an officer of the Bengal police.