Kolkata: The school teacher, arrested a day after the decomposed body of a Class 7 student was found in Rampurhat, West Bengal’s Birbhum district, denied raping the girl but admitted to disposing of her arms and legs in a ditch that remains untraced, police said on Thursday.
The girl, a member of a tribal community, went missing on August 28 while on her way to a private tutorial class, after which her family lodged a complaint at the Rampurhat police station.
Locals spotted a large sack near a ditch outside Kalidanga village and informed the police on Tuesday night. “The victim’s decomposed and dismembered body was found inside the sack,” an officer said. However, the arms and legs were missing.
The teacher was arrested on Wednesday, and the Rampurhat court remanded him in police custody for nine days.
Also Read: Bengal court sentences 3 men to death for 2020 rape, murder of 15-yr-old girl
“The teacher confessed during interrogation that he murdered the girl from his school, but his statements and circumstantial evidence do not point to rape. This is still under investigation,” additional district superintendent of police (headquarters) Rahul Mishra told HT on Thursday.
{{/usCountry}}“The teacher confessed during interrogation that he murdered the girl from his school, but his statements and circumstantial evidence do not point to rape. This is still under investigation,” additional district superintendent of police (headquarters) Rahul Mishra told HT on Thursday.
{{/usCountry}}“The teacher has confessed that he threw the arms and legs in the same ditch, but we have not been able to trace those till now. Our search is ongoing,” Mishra added.
The deceased’s mother alleged that the teacher had been harassing her daughter for a long time. “He used to tell her that he would marry her when she becomes an adult. We had told the police about this after she went missing, but they did not arrest him then,” the mother said on Wednesday.
“We suspect that the victim was raped for days before being murdered. We have information that the man had a history of sexual perversion, and police found sex toys while searching his home,” Abhishek Banerjee, the family’s lawyer, said.
Also Read: West Bengal man sentenced to death for raping, murdering 14-year-old daughter
“The reasons he is giving for murdering the girl are also not very convincing. He is not confessing to rape either,” Mishra said.
Locals and members of the tribal community protested at the school on Thursday and allegedly assaulted the headmaster. They told police that the teacher’s wife divorced him six years ago because of his sexual perversion and multiple extramarital affairs.
“The fact that he got divorced is true, but the allegations of him having a history of sexual perversion, at least in regard to this case, are not clear yet. Let’s see how the investigation goes,” Mishra said.