Odisha horror: Brothers arrested for raping teen, threaten to bury her alive

Two siblings, aged 60 and 58, were arrested in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district on charges of repeatedly raping a 15-year-old girl who visited the ashram where they were employed, police said. Police said that the two individuals, along with an accomplice, recently threatened to bury the girl alive to coerce her into undergoing an abortion. The girl managed to escape and informed her family about the rape, leading them to file a police report.

The police identified the two brothers, who were later arrested, as Bhagyadhar Das (60) and Panchanan Das (58), who worked as a cook and pujari, respectively, at an ashram located in the Kujang block of the district. According to police, the rape survivor had come across the two men during her visits to the ashram, where they raped her multiple times.

After they found out that she was pregnant, the brothers pressured the girl to abort the pregnancy. When she declined, they enticed her to a secluded area where they had excavated a big hole. Tirtol sub-divisional police officer Chinmay Raut said that the accused offered to pay and arrange for an abortion. “They lured her to a location where they had dug a ditch and threatened to bury her alive if she refused to go for an abortion. The survivor, somehow, managed to escape and narrated the ordeal to her father,” Raut said. “She then underwent a medical examination at the district headquarters hospital, and a case was registered at Kujang police station on basis of a complaint by her father,” said Tirtol SDPO Chinmay Raut.

A search is currently underway for the third suspect. In the FIR, the girl’s father also claimed that he had initially reported the incident to a local panchayat official, who offered him money to conceal the matter and even threatened him if he approached the police. In a separate incident in Balasore district, police arrested four men who allegedly attempted to murder a 20-year-old woman after failing to sexually assault her while she was bathing at a pond. The four men reportedly followed the woman to the village pond and attacked her on Thursday. The suspects also attempted to rape the woman and hit her head against a stone for resisting. She, however, managed to flee and informed her family about the incident.