A grieving family had to block roads for three hours before Lucknow police registered a murder case in the death of their 14-year-old daughter, a domestic help whose body was found under suspicious circumstances at her employer’s house in Balaganj on Sunday. Police on Monday registered the case against Raghav Agrawal after the girl’s family staged demonstrations and blocked a road, demanding action.
Vishwajeet Srivastava, deputy commissioner of police (west). said a murder case has been registered against Raghav Agrawal. “The postmortem report mentioned hanging as the cause of death, but viscera has been preserved and further investigation is underway,” he said.
The teenager, a native of Sitapur, had been working for about six months at the house of retired Bokaro Steel Plant employee Prahlad Agrawal in Balaganj Railway Colony under the Thakurganj police station limits. Prahlad Agrawal lives there with his wife Uma and their son Raghav, who works as a data manager in the directorate of urban local bodies.
The girl was found dead on the morning of March 8. Around 11 am, Uma Agrawal allegedly called the girl’s father, informing him that his daughter had died by suicide by hanging from a ceiling fan. However, when the family reached the house, they found the body lying on a bed, raising suspicion. The girl’s father alleged that there were injury marks on her body and signs of tying on her hands and legs.
The family alleged that Raghav attempted to rape the minor and killed her when she resisted, and that the accused and his family tried to pass the incident off as a suicide.
After the postmortem examination, the family placed the body on the road on Sunday night and staged protests, blocking Jal Nigam Road and later the Balaganj crossing. Additional police force and Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel were deployed as tensions rose. The protesters dispersed after senior police officials assured them of action.
