24 hour count: 1 rape, 4 murders, cash loots

Patna: A minor girl was raped in Lakhisarai, four women were killed in Purnea and Saran and altogether Rs 14 lakh was looted in Patna and Siwan districts respectively between Wednesday and Thursday.

The criminals’ audacity can be gauged from the fact that six armed robbers entered Vijaya Bank on Gola Road, under the jurisdiction of Rupaspur police station in Patna, around 4 pm on Thursday and looted Rs 4 lakh in cash. The bank is located in one of the busiest localities of western Patna.

Barely five hours earlier, around 11am, two bike-borne youths had shot at an employee of a private finance company in Siwan and relieved him of Rs 9.5 lakh. The incident took place when Mukesh Kumar was going to deposit money into a bank at the Babunia turning in Siwan district headquarters town, around 145km northwest of Patna.

Mukesh has been admitted to a Siwan-based hospital for treatment and his condition is said to be critical. Siwan superintendent of police (SP) Navin Chandra Jha said the district’s borders have been sealed and raids were underway to nab the robbers, who managed to flee after committing the crime.

A Lakhisarai report said a minor girl was gang-raped by two persons identified as Lalu Prasad Yadav and Pramod Kumar Pandit at a village under the jurisdiction of Halsi police station in the district on Tuesday night. The girl’s brother alleged that the two accused had raped his sister for the second time in three months when she was alone at home. The girl and her family members reached Halsi police station to lodge a complaint but they were advised to make a formal complaint with the women’s police station in the district headquarters town. The family did so after which the girl was sent for medical examination.

In Begusarai, the police recovered bodies of two minor girls hanging from a tree at a mango orchard in Sonapur village on Wednesday evening. The girls, aged 14 and 15, were residents of Sonapur village in Begusarai district. Sources said the elder girl studied in a Delhi-based school and the younger one was Class VIII student at a local government school. Both went missing from their houses on Wednesday morning.

Chhaurahi police outpost station house officer (SHO) Sintu Kumar Jha said the reason behind the incident was yet to be ascertained. He said it was yet to be ascertained whether the girls committed suicide or were murdered and their bodies later hung from the three. The post-mortem report is awaited, he said.

In Purnea, the police recovered beheaded bodies of two sisters from a deserted place on the outskirts of Bilaria village under the jurisdiction of Jalalgarh police station of the district on Thursday. The dead were identified as Kalawati Devi, 40, and Mala Devi, 35.

Purnea superintendent of police (SP) Vishal Sharma said the sisters were living together after the death of their husbands a few years ago. Arvind Kumar, the SHO of Kasba police, under whose jurisdiction the crime took place, said residents who had gone to their agricultural fields spotted the beheaded bodies; their heads were recovered from another place. “It is suspected that the two sisters were killed with a sharp-edged weapon and their bodies dumped on the spot,” Arvind told The Telegraph over phone.

In Saran district, unidentified armed criminals gunned down 50-year-old Shakat Sai alias Dullu Sai, owner of a tent house and crockery shop owner, on the premises of Matihar high school under the jurisdiction of Majhi police station in the district.

His son Mustaq Sai said the incident took place around 4am when he had gone to take a morning walk on the school premises. A spur in incidents of crime has left senior police officers in the police headquarters red-faced.

Courtesy: The Telegraph