Missing girl returns home after cremation

DASPUR: A 16-year-old girl who had run away from her home in a West Midnapore village returned on Wednesday to find that her parents had cremated the body of a woman mistaking it to be hers. Police found the missing girl, a resident of Dhankhali village in Daspur block, in the Calcutta home of the elder sister of the boy with whom she was allegedly in a relationship. The girl had left home on August 8, saying she was going to her uncle's house. But she did not go there. "The girl's father had told us that he had last seen the girl with a woman of the locality at the Daspur bus stand on August 8. He had lodged a kidnapping complaint against the woman," a police officer said.

"We arrested the homemaker. She admitted that she had taken the girl to a friend of the boy with whom the teenager was in a relationship. We arrested the boy and his friend on August 22. Yesterday, the boy admitted that he had kept the girl in his elder sister's home at Kaikhali in Calcutta. We found the girl there around 1.30am today and brought her to Daspur police station," the officer added. The girl was sent to a government home in Midnapore town. The farmer father of the girl said that on August 21, he saw a newspaper report on the recovery of the decomposed body of a woman in Digha. "We went to Digha police station on August 21, identified the body and brought it home on August 22. We cremated the body the same day. The police recovered our daughter early today. We had identified the wrong body," the girl's father said. A police officer said the girl was in a relationship with a local carpenter and had eloped with him once, in May. "The girl told us she had been beaten up by her parents for entering into the relationship. When we produced her in court today, she refused to return to her father's home," the officer said. Asked why the wrong body was handed over by the police, East Midnapore superintendent of police Alok Rajoria said: "We are inquiring how this happened. We might start a case against the girl's parents for misleading the police." -The Telegraph Calcutta