Minor girl found murdered in Chodavaram

Visakhapatnam: In a gruesome incident, a minor girl was allegedly raped and murdered at Lakshmipuram area under Chodavaram police station limits in Vizag district. Though the incident took place on Tuesday night, it came to light only when the semi-burnt body of the girl was found near the forest department depot at Lakshmipuram on Wednesday morning.

The victim was identified as P Padmavathi alias Padmaja,16, a resident of Kotaveedhi area in Chodavaram and a second-year intermediate student of government junior college. Initially, the police struggled to establish the identity of the victim with no clues and later they have identified the victim following a complaint from the girl’s parents.

“Padmavathi on Tuesday evening went to meet someone without informing her parents and didn’t return to home. Though the parents of girl launched a search operation to trace the girl, their efforts went in vain,” said a police officer. On Wednesday morning, locals found a semi-burnt body of a girl near Lakshmipuram and alerted the police.

Though the police retrieve the semi-burnt body, they didn’t get any clue to establish the identity of girl. Hours after the incident, the police received a complaint from one P Eswar Rao that her daughter P Padmavathi went missing. Later, Eswar Rao identified that the deceased girl was his daughter Padmavathi. Sources said that Padmavathi was in love with one youngster who is also a resident of Kottaveedh and he might have involved in the crime.

“We have registered a case and investigation is on to identify the accused. We are waiting for post-mortem report and few others to intensify the investigation in various aspects to nab the accused,” said Chodavaram Inspector M Srinivas. “We are suspecting that the girl was raped and murdered and the accused burnt the body of girl to hide the identity of victim,” he added.