Dikhyaa Mohanty 
After the arrest of a youth connected with the murder of murder case of ‘Pari’ in Nayagarh District by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Crime Branch, several questions occurred as people asked about proper evidence. On Tuesday, SIT Chief- Arun Bothra revealed the operation’s details and about the prime accused- Saroj Sethi.
Arun Bothra revealed that the minor girl used to go to Saroj’s house with some other children to eat berries in the backyard. His home is about 200 meters from the girl’s house. Even the minor girl was very close to Saroj’s younger sister.
Talking about the background of Saroj, Bothra revealed that Saroj’s father has died and his mother is an ASHA worker, whereas his younger sister has a private job and his eldest sister is married.
On 14th July, the minor girl went to Saroj’s house to have some berries and was alone at home. After finding her alone, Saroj took her to a room near the backyard and tried to undress her. When the girl protested, he strangulated her, to which she died. After he raped the corpse and then put his body and the frock inside a sack, he covered the bag with coconut leaves and hit it under a bush near the pond.
Bothra further said that Saroj had forgotten to take the deceased girl’s leggings and later might have thrown them in the pond. The team suspected that the legging is still in the pond, to which they decided to flush out the pond water to find out.
SIT chief further revealed that the accused- Saroj, watched child pornography on his sister’s mobile phone, where he had opened a folder and downloaded porn visuals and locked it. The day before the incident, he had watched child pornography on his mobile for the whole night, where he confessed that he had no plan to murder or rape the minor. After watching the pornography the previous night, he committed the crime when the minor girl came to his house the next day.
At first, the accused refused to undergo a polygraph test but later agreed when SIT informed him that his refusal could be taken against him in his involvement in the case. After which, the polygraph test confirmed that he was involved in the murder.
Arun Bothra further informed that there is no eye witness to the incident, so they are trying to collect scientific evidence. The team has also talked to the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB) and the Delhi-based National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR).
Article Written by Dikhya Mohanty
Image Source: Google
