Jajpur, Odisha: The Odisha Police has arrested a man who fled from the state after raping a 18-year-old girl and killing her mother in Jajpur district last month, police said Monday.
The accused, identified as Bijaya Behera, 22, a resident of local Kumari village under the jurisdiction of Dharmasala police station area in Jajpur district, was nabbed by police team in Kerala on Sunday night, said Saroj Kumar Sahoo, inspector-in-charge of Dharmasala police station.
"We were tracking the mobile phone of the accused regularly. We got information that the accused was in Kerala on Sunday. We immediately went Kerala by flight and arrested the accused near the aerodrome area on Sunday night," the IIC said.
The incident took place at Deuli hilltop in Jajpur district on the night of May 2. Behera allegedly raped the girl in front of her mother, he said.
When the mother objected, the accused hacked her to death, the police said adding that the girl was also assaulted and seriously injured.
The matter came to the light when some local youths who had been to the Deuli hill, heard a woman screaming for help in the wee hours of May 4.
When the youths reached on the hilltop, they found the fifty-year-old woman lying dead. Her daughter was also found beside her in critical condition.
They informed the police immediately. The police later rescued the rape victim and sent body of her mother for post- mortem examination.
The police, however, could not take any action immediately as the rape victim was not able to speak.
She was rushed to SCB Medical College Hospital in Cuttack as her condition deteriorated, the police officer said.
She later narrated the entire incident to the police.
Based on the girl's statement, the police arrested one Pabitra Maharana alias Vickey, an associate of Behera.
Both Vickey and Behera had forcibly lifted the girl from her house and took her to Deuli hilltop, where incident took place, the officer said.
The girl's mother followed them to the hilltop, he said.
"They took the girl to the Deuli hilltop. The mother reached the spot following them. After reaching hill, Vicky returned home. Bijaya raped the girl before her mother and thrashed both mother and daughter black and blue. While mother died on the spot, her daughter sustained critical injuries," Sahoo said.
The police officer said that the accused has confessed his crime, both rape and murder, during interrogation.
