West Bengal girl found dead after kangaroo court feud, family alleges rape

Police said the girl was missing since Monday night after the village court asked her father to repay a loan of Rs 4000 from another villager, Anil Burman. She was allegedly asked to lick spit when his father failed to pay back and the husband of a ruling Trinamool Congress local councillor was also present in the kangaroo court.

Her body was discovered next day in the morning by the track with only a cloth on her shoulder.

"We have arrested two neighbours of the girl though the case was first registered by the Railway Police. She was found by the track and it could be that her clothes were torn because she was dragged by a train for 500 feet. But we are not ruling out murder since she went missing after the feud with the village court," Jalpaiguri superintendent of police Kunal Agarwal said.

"Whether she was raped can be ascertained from post mortem and we are waiting for that report," Agarwal said.

The girl's father and uncle said she was raped and then killed. They even alleged that the men who were behind the village court were Trinamool Congress affiliated.

Trinamool Congress  councillor Namita Roy's husband was also present at the kangaroo court, a fact not disputed by cops also.  The party has denied its role in the incident.

Opposition communist party student wings are protesting the incident on Wednesday.

Notably, in January this year, a young woman was allegedly raped by about 13 men in a Birbhum village on the order of a village court for her affair with a man from another community.