Bhubaneswar: A six-year-old girl who was raped, strangulated and left to die inside a school campus in Odisha’s Cuttack district on 10 days ago, died on Sunday at the hospital where she was undergoing treatment.
The girl was found in the school at Jagannathpur village in a “very critical” condition and was immediately rushed to a nearby private nursing home from where she was shifted to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, where she died on Sunday.
She had suffered deep injuries in her head, face, neck and chest, as well as on her private parts.
Dr Shyama Kanungo, superintendent of the Medical College, said she suffered a cardiac arrest and was declared dead.
“Police inquest and postmortem examinations are being arranged,” he was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
The girl’s condition worsened on Saturday and a health bulletin by the hospital had warned that the patient was “deeply comatose” and that her “brain stem reflex was absent.”
According to report, the girl had gone to purchase biscuits in her village but when she did not return after some time and there was a power cut, her family members set out to look for her along with villagers.
“After a frantic search for over an hour the girl was traced lying unconscious and without clothes in the school campus with blood oozing from her head and mouth,” the police said.
A case under the Pocso Act and IPC sections 376(2)(rape) and 307 (attempt to murder) was registered on the basis of a written complaint filed by the girl”s grandfather, Salepur police inspector D K Mallick said. A 25-year-old man of the same village was arrested in connection with the incident.
State Health Minister Pratap Jena visited the hospital and said that a team of at least 13 doctors drawn from several departments was attending on the girl.