Sikkim girl murder: Cops nab Bihar man

Amid public outrage, Sikkim Police has arrested a taxi driver in connection with the alleged rape and murder of a schoolgirl near Gangtok.

Akshay Sachdeva, the Special DGP, along with highranking officials from the Gangtok District Police, yesterday announced that the girl was reported missing to the Gangtok Sadar Police Station on 11 April.

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According to the SDGP, a report was received from the Lindok Police Station on 14 April, stating that a grass cutter had discovered the body in the jungle.

“At that time, the Sadar Police Station recorded an Unnatural Death (UD) case and sent the body for postmortem. Initially, a medical team ‘indicated’ possibly that the case could be murder and sexual assault. It was later confirmed that the case was related to the same missing girl when a cross verification was done based on a photo provided by the mother and a locket that the dead body was wearing, which matched the missing girl’s,” Mr Sachdeva said.

The accused, Pritam Sharma, 29, hails from Samastipur in Bihar and he had been working as a driver, while living in Sichey earlier and currently residing in Tathangcheng. According to reports, he lured the 11-yearold girl by promising to drop her home after school. However, when the victim told him that she had reached her house, the accused forced her to go with him. He then promised to buy her some juice and took her to the Pangthang Fambong jungle.

“During investigations, the accused admitted to sexually assaulting the minor girl in the jungle. He then killed her out of fear to conceal evidence and claimed that he strangled her with her school tie,” a police officer said.

“Many plainclothes police personnel pitched into the investigation from all angles to draw a conclusion in this case, in which CCTV footage was also an important tool from where police successfully caught the culprit. The entire SIT team set up under the direction of the DGP was assigned to conduct investigations from CDR analysis, public interactions, CCTV footage collections,” the officer said.

On the other hand, Sharma has claimed that he is a married man.

“A blind murder case has been solved following hard efforts put in by our Special Investigation Team (SIT) within a very short span of time after occurrence, and that is the best part of Sikkim Police,” the SDGP told media persons.

Mr Sachdeva further appealed to owners of houses in Sikkim to verify tenants’ identity before renting out their rooms. “House owners should keep records of their tenants, history and address,” he said.