Bhagalpur victim was not raped: Bihar authorities

Authorities in Bihar on Monday denied that the woman found hanging from a tree in Bhagalpur on Saturday was being gang-raped.

A woman who got down from a Delhi-bound train in Bhagalpur district, was allegedly gang-raped, killed and her body hung from a tree at a mango orchard in Bhagalpur on Saturday, reports stated.

Police had initially said the 32-year-old victim, who was a passenger of the Brahmaputra Mail that was travelling to the national capital, was dragged to the mango orchard and gang-raped by unidentified persons after she alighted from the train between Vikramshila and Kahalgaon stations.

She was strangulated and her body hung from a tree late on Saturday night, reports added. Police recovered the body on Sunday and sent it to the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital in Bhagalpur for postmortem.

Bihar Director General of Police Abhyanand told Rediff.com on Monday, "The postmortem report says that the victim was not sexually harassed. It's strange that the girl would come to Bhagalpur to commit suicide. It would be premature to comment anything more at this point of time. Investigations are on".

Meanwhile, Shanawaz Hussain, Bhartiya Janata Party's member of Parliament from Bhagalpur, has rushed to his constituency to find out the veracity of the police version.

Speaking to Rediff.com, Hussain wondered why the woman should get down at Bhagalpur while her destination was Delhi.

"According to the state BJP unit the woman belonged to Jalpaiguri in West Bengal and was travelling to Delhi by the Bhramaputra Mail before some elements caught her and forced her to get down at Bhagalpur."

Another police officer related to the investigations said, "The postmortem report says the woman had committed suicide. Liquor bottles, her ticket, cell numbers and her home address were found from her personal belongings. She had tried to get down at Sahibganj as well, but her co-passengers prevented her from doing so".

But Hussain is not willing to go by the police version. "She was dragged to the mango orchard by the culprits. I am visiting Bhagalpur tonight and after going to the spot I would be able to say what really happened," he said.