PATNA: Sanjay Rai, prime accused in alleged gangrape and murder of a 14-year-old Dalit girl, was arrested from Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, police said on Monday. Acting on a tip-off, a police team conducted a raid at his suspected hideout after tracing his mobile phone, which he had been using for the last few days, under Saraiya police station limits in Muzaffarpur district on Sunday. He was absconding ever since an FIR was lodged against him and his associates.Muzaffarpur senior superintendent of police Rakesh Kumar said that Rai is being questioned by a special team of police and confirmed that one of his associates was arrested earlier.Rai was later produced before the chief judicial magistrate and was remanded to judicial custody for 14 days. Unconfirmed reports said that Rai’s two accomplices have been picked up for interrogation. His property was attached after the court’s directive and bulldozers were used to raze the house to the ground.In the FIR, the girl’s mother alleged that Rai, who was married with three children, wanted to marry his teenage daughter. A day before the crime, he had threatened the family with dire consequences for turning down his marriage proposal.“We were apprehensive of the untoward incident, which happened on August 11,” the victim’s mother said. The next day, the victim’s body was found in a pond near her village. The victim’s legs were tied with a rope and cut marks were found on her neck, head and arms. Police, however, claimed that no evidence of rape was found during postmortem but admitted that signs of injuries on the victim’s face, neck and left hand were found.Local residents on Sunday ransacked the houses of Rai’s aides following the police’s failure to arrest the main accused. This led to tension between people belonging to two rival castes at the village, a resident said.
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