Hyderabad: A girl who fabricated the story of her own kidnap and gang rape committed suicide at her home in Ghatkesar on the outskirts of Hyderabad, police said.
Ghatkesar police said the girl’s relatives found her unconscious in her room on Wednesday night and rushed her to a nearby hospital where she was declared dead.
The police reached the hospital and took the body in custody for further investigation. The body was being sent to Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad for post-mortem.
Police and family members say the girl had consumed sleeping pills in large quantities causing her death.
Ever since the police established that the 19-year-old girl had lied about her alleged kidnapping and gang rape, she was staying at her uncle’s house at Ghatkesar.
The incident started on February 10 when the girl (name and identity withheld by police as per the law) went missing while returning from the Pharmacy college to her home. After getting down from a public transport bus she remained out of reach over phone for almost three hours. On her mother’s complaint, the girl was located by the police at an isolated spot of Annojiguda with an injured leg, torn clothes and under trauma at around 7.30pm by a police patrol and was taken to hospital.
The next day she gave a statement to the police alleging that a group of auto drivers had kidnapped her in an auto rickshaw and later in a van. She also alleged that she was given an injection and gang raped.
The police immediately took into custody four auto drivers in the area. The girl identified one of the auto drivers as the culprit when she was shown their photographs.
As the local media speculated on what happened and created hysteria about the increasing crime against women in Hyderabad, police stepped up their probe. With the help of footage of 90 CCTV cameras and mobile signals of the suspects, police concluded that the girl was lying and trying to frame the innocent people.
After cracking the case within four days with the help of scientific evidence, Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat tendered an apology to the drivers for their harassment and reported to the court that the girl had narrated a fake story to get away from home.
After police showed her the evidence including the video footage showing the girl harming herself she broke down. “After discharge from hospital she came to my office and admitted that it was all a cooked up story,” police commissioner Bhagwat told the media.
Even as the police were investigating the matter to find out why the girl had done this, and the case was to be heard by the court, the girl took her own life.
Family members say the girl was depressed and afraid of the course the case would take.
