An alleged suicide of Rinku Devi, a warden of government residential school for girls — Kasturba Gandhi Balika Avasiya Vidyalaya — in Begusarai has turned out to be a murder following investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and two accused have also been arrested.
Event Context
Of the arrested accused, Kaushal Kumar is a co-villager of the victim, and Ajit Kumar Bablu is the caretaker (guard) of the school.
Rinku Devi’s body was found hanging in the school premises on April 4, 2021. The case was closed by the state police as “suicide” but the Patna high court quashed the closure report on April 11 this year and ordered an IG-headed probe into the case after victim’s daughter Tejaswini Kumari sought re-investigation.
The IG, while sharing the information about the investigation, said that during its re-investigation, the SIT requestioned the FSL team and the medical board members who conducted the autopsy of Devi and her hanging was proven by forensic and postmortem details. “Some independent witnesses provided us with photographs that clearly show a noose around the neck and the rope looped from a ceiling fan and the deceased body was covered with dust. There is a bleeding wound from the nose, which proves the murder,” said the IG.
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The SIT, headed by Inspector General (IG) Vikas Vaibhav, started its probe on June 17. According to officers aware of the investigation, the team found a breakthrough when the forensic science laboratory (FSL) cited asphyxia caused by strangulation as the reason for death. The SIT found that the accused had hanged the body after murder so that it looked like suicide.
According to SIT findings, the reason behind Devi’s murder by the accused duo was ₹15 lakh that Devi had given to one accused Kaushal Kumar, who is from Devi’s village. Devi’s daughter Tejaswini said that her mother gave this money so that Kumar could purchase a plot of land for her. But when he couldn’t, she demanded her money. But Kumar didn’t intend to pay back and roped in the caretaker of the school, Kaushal Kumar, to kill Devi.
The SIT findings have raised questions about the police investigation conducted by the Investigation Officer (IO) Samrendra Kumar who, according to the SIT team, shut down the investigation despite the medical report stating that “murder by strangulation cannot be ruled out.”
Moreover, he didn’t write the FSL report findings in the case diary, an officer said.
