A nine-year-old schoolgirl was found dumped in a graveyard at Pakuria in the Rajshahi city on Friday night, the police said on Saturday.
She was strangled after being gang-raped, the police said adding that two people had been arrested in this connection. The Rajshahi metropolitan police recovered the undressed body of the class-III student with several marks of injuries on Friday night from the graveyard located in a quiet area on the fringe of the city.
The police arrested one of the accused who was named in the case filed by the girl’s day-labourer father with the Shahmakhdum police station.
The father of the victim said that his daughter had gone missing when she was returning home alone after attending a family gathering in a neighbouring village.
Parents and neighbours started searching for the girl after evening and having found no trace of her, informed the police.
Locals informed her parents that some local youths had been seen at the spot from where the girl had gone missing.
After hectic search, her parents and neighbours found her pair of sandals and clothes nearby, and finally found the body at about 11:00pm on Friday.
The body was handed over to the parents after post-mortem examinations at the Rajshahi Medical College morgue.
She was the only child of her poor parents.
Shahmakhdum police officer-in-charge Hafizur Rahman, also the case investigation officer, told New Age on Saturday the girl was killed after being raped.
The police arrested Jack, one of the two accused named in the first information report.
After primary investigation, police said Jack had confessed to the crime and said his friend Rana was also involved in the rape and murder.
Jack was taken to the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, where a metropolitan magistrate recorded his confessional statement under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The police were trying to arrest Rana.
-With New Age input
