Girl, 12, found hanging at Bareilly home was raped, postmortem reveals

Bareilly: A 12-year-old girl who was found hanging inside her home in Bareilly city earlier this week had been sexually assaulted, postmortem has confirmed, prompting police to widen the investigation and form two teams to identify the culprits and reconstruct the events leading to her death.Police said the girl’s parents were not at home when she took her own life on Tuesday. Her younger sister found her dead and informed her father. Officers reached the spot, brought the body down and sent it for postmortem. The medical report changed the course of the investigation. “The postmortem confirmed rape and found serious injury marks on the girl’s body, even as the cause of death was recorded as hanging,” SP (South) Anshika Verma said.Police said initial questioning of the mother had not suggested rape. Verma added that police also found the girl had allegedly been beaten with a stick by her mother a day before the incident. “The postmortem has confirmed hanging as the cause of death and also established that the girl was sexually assaulted. Two police teams have been formed to crack the case,” she said.