Bhubaneswar: Village head rapes 6-yr-old, detained

BHUBANESWAR: A village head allegedly raped a six-year-old girl in Patapur area of Odisha’s Ganjam district. The accused, Mrutyunjaya Das, was taken into custody for questioning on Monday following a complaint by the mother of the victim.

Area police, quoting the mother, said Das raped the girl on December 3. When the mother started for the police station to lodge a complaint, she was prevented from doing so by aides of the accused. Finally, she managed to lodge the complaint on Sunday.

In another development, police on Monday arrested a couple for their alleged involvement in the Puri gangrape case.

The accused have been identified as Ranjit Parida and Soumya Shefalika Parida.

Puri superintendent of police Uma Sankar Dash told a presser that the couple is suspected to have brought the victim from Bhubaneswar to Puri.

Cops earlier had arrested four persons — Bulu Barik, a CRPF jawan, Jeetendra Sethy, a dismissed police constable, and Rajesh Sethy and Rama Chandra Pradhan, in connection with the case.

The victim, a 17-year-old minor, was on December 2 allegedly gangraped inside a police quarter near Jhadeswari Club in Puri town.

Recounting her ordeal, the girl had told media persons, “I was returning to Kakatpur in a bus from Bhubaneswar. I alighted at Nimapara bus terminal to have food and missed the bus. While waiting for another bus, a person introduced himself as a policeman. The victim said she was taken to a police quarter in Puri, where she was raped.