Patna: A man in Bihar took his teenaged daughter away from home, gagged her and then threw her into the gushing river at the dead of night. Her crime: falling in love with a local boy and wanting to marry him against her parents’ wishes.
The girl survived after swimming to safety.
The incident took place at Kursela town in eastern Bihar’s Katihar district around midnight on Sunday but was reported in the local media on Tuesday. The girl — a class 10 student enrolled in a government high school — is a resident of Kodraghat village under Alamganj police station in Madhepura district.
Police said Sanjay Mandal accompanied by four relatives took his daughter away on a four-wheeler on the pretext of getting medical treatment in a neighbouring Bhagalpur town on Sunday evening. However, as the vehicle reached bridge built over the Kosi river at Kursela town, they stopped and asked the girl to come out of the vehicle saying one of its tyres was punctured.
As the unsuspecting girl came out, her father along with other relatives threw her into the surging river from near the bridge railing after gagging her. It was around 11.30pm. After committing the crime, the father fled the scene.
The girl battled hard with the river current and continued swimming with the tide until she got to the bank of the river around 1pm. In the darkness, she noticed a boat at the bank and somehow got inside it. She narrated her story to the boatman.
The very next morning the boatman carried the girl to the local village head who informed the local Kursela police about the incident. The police have registered a case against the accused.
“The girl told us her family took her away on the pretext of admitting her to a hospital in Bhagalpur but threw her into the gushing river after assaulting her. She could survive because she knew how to swim,” the local Kursela police station office-in-charge Anuk Kumar told the media on Tuesday.
She also told the police she did not want to return to her parents. “I don’t want to return to my family. They will again try to kill me,” the girl told the police. The victim had fallen in love with a local boy Subhash Mandal which had extremely angered her parents.
