Insta friendship, instant death, and lingering questions in a Bihar village
As caste politics enters the picture and a Dalit teen is held, police investigate what caused the death of a 15-year-old Rajput girl in Saran.
He sits on a plastic chair outside his modest, unplastered single-storey house in a village in Bihar’s Saran district, surrounded by relatives who have come to offer condolences and, for the past few days, politicians across party lines. Inside the two-room house, with no toilet and only a hand pump just outside for water, there is palpable tension — and a wariness of strangers.
“She was very skilled, good at studies. She could even drive motorcycles. She wanted to join the police,” he says, referring to his 15-year-old daughter, found dead in a well next to an abandoned house owned by the family on March 13.
An 18-year-old Dalit man from the village and four others have been booked under the POCSO Act and charged with culpable homicide, murder, abetment of suicide, assault, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence. The 15-year-old Rajput girl was allegedly in a relationship with the Dalit teen — their friendship, forbidden by caste lines, developed largely on social media.
While police are investigating whether the teen killed the 15-year-old, they deny sexual assault. “The post-mortem shows death from drowning. No external injuries were observed, and there is no indication of sexual assault,” DGP Vinay Kumar said in a statement on March 18. He added that the roles of four others and their links to the prime accused are being investigated, though there is no corroboration yet of their presence at the scene.
The coming local polls have made caste a flashpoint in the case, and among those who have visited the girl’s family are BJP’s Saran MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy, RJD’s Parsa MLA Karishma Rai and Purnea MP Pappu Yadav. Saran is Rudy’s home turf, and the Parsa Assembly constituency falls under the parliamentary constituency.
As the spotlight lingers, the girl’s family — including her parents, two sisters and a brother — say they are exhausted. “For almost a week, leaders, ministers, media, everyone keeps coming and asking the same things. Will my daughter come back? I don’t want to speak to anyone anymore,” the mother bursts out.
Her husband asks her to quieten down, but the daughter interjects: “Mummy’s right. She’s gone, so what will all this crowding do? All they give are assurances.”
A ‘friendship’
The village is predominantly Rajput, with only a few Dalit families. The girl and the suspect lived around 200 metres apart, but with the worlds of the two castes entirely separate, it was Instagram that brought them together, say sources, adding that the accused’s brother studied in the same government school as the victim, a Class 10 student.
The well where the 15-year-old was found lies a few metres from a house owned by the family that has been abandoned and is in ruins, overrun by vegetation. The rim of the sunken well is level with the ground, with no parapet around it.
The girl’s father works in Daman and Diu at a mill and rushed home on March 13 after hearing about her death. The family lives on his monthly earnings of Rs 18,000–Rs 20,000.
As speculation grows about how the 15-year-old and the Dalit teen kept in touch, the father says there is a single phone at home, kept by his wife. “I called every two-three days.”
He says he last came home a year ago, and his last conversation with the 15-year-old was in February during her Class 10 examinations. “She asked for Rs 300 to buy a dictionary.”
On what happened that day, he says: “She had gone to collect firewood, that’s all I know… By the time I reached, she had already been cremated.”
In the Dalit part of the village, residents have been watching the stream of visitors to the other side. When anyone approaches, they slip indoors. Even those who respond say they know nothing.
One woman says she “arrived only the previous day”; another says she and her daughter had been ill and knew nothing. The village head says he has “no information”.
The suspect’s family has left, residents reveal reluctantly. Asked where they can be found, a villager shouts back, “If you want details, go to the MP’s house, he will tell you.”
Neighbours around the house don’t respond to knocks or queries. Unlike the other side, there are no outsiders here — including policemen or politicians.
The probe
Sub-Divisional Police Officer Pritish Kumar says they got to know around 5 pm on March 11 that a girl had died under suspicious circumstances. By the time police arrived, he says, villagers had retrieved the body from the well and placed it at the edge.
A preliminary report, based on statements from the mother and a villager, suggested she had been pushed, Kumar says.
The body was sent for post-mortem, and a written complaint, bearing the mother’s thumb impression, was submitted on March 12. An FIR was registered the same day under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the POCSO Act, naming the prime accused and four others.
According to police sources, the girl had allegedly told the boy on Instagram that she was going to the old house, and the two met there. Meanwhile, the girl’s mother was looking for her and asked two neighbours about her, before finding her at the family’s abandoned house with the Dalit teen. One of the girl’s sisters also reportedly arrived at the scene, and as a crowd gathered, the accused allegedly fled.
A villager claims that “three to five men were hiding inside the house. They watched from the window, waiting for her. When she came, they caught her, assaulted her, and threw her into the well.” However, police have found no confirmation of this.
Police say that when the Dalit teen was arrested and questioned, he admitted knowing the girl, communicating on Instagram, and speaking with her earlier that day.
“Evidence indicates that the girl went to the family’s old residence at approximately 2:30 pm that day. The family members found them and raised a hue and cry. During this, the boy fled, and the girl was later found in the well. It is yet to be determined whether the fall was accidental, self-inflicted, or the result of being pushed,” the DGP said.
Sources allege that “some local political elements” are trying to amplify the issue “due to the upcoming elections.”
“The complaint was brought by someone with political ambitions and who wants to contest the panchayat elections,” the source alleges, adding: “The mother was made to put a thumb impression without fully understanding the contents.”
Further investigation is underway, sources say, adding that the police have secured the suspect’s custody and will question him after Eid. “A detailed questionnaire has been prepared. We will question him, the mother, the sister, and all eyewitnesses, separately and in detail,” the source says, adding that the suspect will face trial.
Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
He sits on a plastic chair outside his modest, unplastered single-storey house in a village in Bihar’s Saran district, surrounded by relatives who have come to offer condolences and, for the past few days, politicians across party lines. Inside the two-room house, with no toilet and only a hand pump just outside for water, there is palpable tension — and a wariness of strangers.
“She was very skilled, good at studies. She could even drive motorcycles. She wanted to join the police,” he says, referring to his 15-year-old daughter, found dead in a well next to an abandoned house owned by the family on March 13.
An 18-year-old Dalit man from the village and four others have been booked under the POCSO Act and charged with culpable homicide, murder, abetment of suicide, assault, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence. The 15-year-old Rajput girl was allegedly in a relationship with the Dalit teen — their friendship, forbidden by caste lines, developed largely on social media.
While police are investigating whether the teen killed the 15-year-old, they deny sexual assault. “The post-mortem shows death from drowning. No external injuries were observed, and there is no indication of sexual assault,” DGP Vinay Kumar said in a statement on March 18. He added that the roles of four others and their links to the prime accused are being investigated, though there is no corroboration yet of their presence at the scene.
The coming local polls have made caste a flashpoint in the case, and among those who have visited the girl’s family are BJP’s Saran MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy, RJD’s Parsa MLA Karishma Rai and Purnea MP Pappu Yadav. Saran is Rudy’s home turf, and the Parsa Assembly constituency falls under the parliamentary constituency.
As the spotlight lingers, the girl’s family — including her parents, two sisters and a brother — say they are exhausted. “For almost a week, leaders, ministers, media, everyone keeps coming and asking the same things. Will my daughter come back? I don’t want to speak to anyone anymore,” the mother bursts out.
Her husband asks her to quieten down, but the daughter interjects: “Mummy’s right. She’s gone, so what will all this crowding do? All they give are assurances.”
A ‘friendship’
The village is predominantly Rajput, with only a few Dalit families. The girl and the suspect lived around 200 metres apart, but with the worlds of the two castes entirely separate, it was Instagram that brought them together, say sources, adding that the accused’s brother studied in the same government school as the victim, a Class 10 student.
The well where the 15-year-old was found lies a few metres from a house owned by the family that has been abandoned and is in ruins, overrun by vegetation. The rim of the sunken well is level with the ground, with no parapet around it.
The girl’s father works in Daman and Diu at a mill and rushed home on March 13 after hearing about her death. The family lives on his monthly earnings of Rs 18,000–Rs 20,000.
As speculation grows about how the 15-year-old and the Dalit teen kept in touch, the father says there is a single phone at home, kept by his wife. “I called every two-three days.”
He says he last came home a year ago, and his last conversation with the 15-year-old was in February during her Class 10 examinations. “She asked for Rs 300 to buy a dictionary.”
On what happened that day, he says: “She had gone to collect firewood, that’s all I know… By the time I reached, she had already been cremated.”
In the Dalit part of the village, residents have been watching the stream of visitors to the other side. When anyone approaches, they slip indoors. Even those who respond say they know nothing.
One woman says she “arrived only the previous day”; another says she and her daughter had been ill and knew nothing. The village head says he has “no information”.
The suspect’s family has left, residents reveal reluctantly. Asked where they can be found, a villager shouts back, “If you want details, go to the MP’s house, he will tell you.”
Neighbours around the house don’t respond to knocks or queries. Unlike the other side, there are no outsiders here — including policemen or politicians.
The probe
Sub-Divisional Police Officer Pritish Kumar says they got to know around 5 pm on March 11 that a girl had died under suspicious circumstances. By the time police arrived, he says, villagers had retrieved the body from the well and placed it at the edge.
A preliminary report, based on statements from the mother and a villager, suggested she had been pushed, Kumar says.
The body was sent for post-mortem, and a written complaint, bearing the mother’s thumb impression, was submitted on March 12. An FIR was registered the same day under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the POCSO Act, naming the prime accused and four others.
According to police sources, the girl had allegedly told the boy on Instagram that she was going to the old house, and the two met there. Meanwhile, the girl’s mother was looking for her and asked two neighbours about her, before finding her at the family’s abandoned house with the Dalit teen. One of the girl’s sisters also reportedly arrived at the scene, and as a crowd gathered, the accused allegedly fled.
A villager claims that “three to five men were hiding inside the house. They watched from the window, waiting for her. When she came, they caught her, assaulted her, and threw her into the well.” However, police have found no confirmation of this.
Police say that when the Dalit teen was arrested and questioned, he admitted knowing the girl, communicating on Instagram, and speaking with her earlier that day.
“Evidence indicates that the girl went to the family’s old residence at approximately 2:30 pm that day. The family members found them and raised a hue and cry. During this, the boy fled, and the girl was later found in the well. It is yet to be determined whether the fall was accidental, self-inflicted, or the result of being pushed,” the DGP said.
Sources allege that “some local political elements” are trying to amplify the issue “due to the upcoming elections.”
“The complaint was brought by someone with political ambitions and who wants to contest the panchayat elections,” the source alleges, adding: “The mother was made to put a thumb impression without fully understanding the contents.”
Further investigation is underway, sources say, adding that the police have secured the suspect’s custody and will question him after Eid. “A detailed questionnaire has been prepared. We will question him, the mother, the sister, and all eyewitnesses, separately and in detail,” the source says, adding that the suspect will face trial.
