BALURGHAT: When the whole nation is welcoming the Delhi court verdict of death sentence in the seven-year-old Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, police on Tuesday, arrested three youths for their alleged involvement in the rape and murder of a minor girl whose charred body was found by local pedestrians on Monday in Kumarganj, which is around 24 km from here. The trio has been identified as Mahabur Mian, Pankaj Barman and Goutam Barman. They were produced in Balurghat court on Tuesday and were remanded to police custody. Police said the 17-year-old deceased was a resident of Panchagram under Gangarampur police station area. She went missing since Sunday noon after going to an adjacent market to buy warm clothes. Her mobile phone was also switched off. Unable to locate her, the worried family members contacted her friends and relatives but to no avail. On Monday, the locals found her charred body in the morning under a culvert at Garowar area under Safanagar Gram Panchayat and informed the cops. Police from Kumarganj police station reached the spot and started an investigation. She received 90 per cent burns because of which it was difficult to identify her. Preliminary investigation revealed that the girl might have been raped before being murdered and then set ablaze to remove evidence. Furthermore, police investigation revealed that one of the accused wanted to marry the victim and was pestering her for about a year. Being rejected repeatedly, he got in touch with the other two accused and befriended them. As one of them was a relative of the victim, he asked him to convince her to marry him. When that did not work, he along with the other accused, on Sunday, kidnapped her from the market. On reaching a desolate place in Kumarganj, the trio first raped her, then stabbed her to death with a sharp weapon. They set her on fire by pouring petrol to remove all evidence. The bike that was used in the crime has been seized by the police. District police chief Debarshi Dutta said the accused have already admitted to the crime during police interrogation. "We have solid evidence against them. The accused have also acknowledged their involvement in committing the crime. We will produce the charge-sheet within a week," he said.

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