Biharsharif: A 17-year-old girl from a village in Nalanda died by suicide on Friday morning, about 12 hours after she was allegedly raped by an 18-year-old neighbour.The accused, identified as Nivas Kumar, allegedly entered the girl’s house on Thursday evening when she was alone. Her parents had gone to the farmfield where wheat harvesting was in progress.Upon returning late evening, the parents found their daughter in a state of distress with Nivas present inside the house. The accused allegedly brandished a pistol and issued threats to the family, warning them against reporting the incident to the police, before fleeing the scene.The girl’s father told the police that he assured his daughter that an FIR against the accused would be filed on Friday morning. However, when he and his wife returned from the fields around 9am on Friday to complete pending work, they found her hanging inside her room.The deceased was the youngest of five sisters, all of whom are married. She had recently passed her Intermediate examinations in the second division.Following her death, the body was sent to a govt hospital for the postmortem. The SHO said a medical board, comprising three doctors, including a female doctor, has been constituted to conduct an examination. The postmortem report would establish the cause of death and corroborate the alleged sexual assault, police said.The deceased girl’s aunt alleged that the crime was rooted in political animosity, claiming that the accused’s father had lost civic body election the previous year and held a grievance against her family for not supporting his candidacy.The girl’s family said they would file an FIR after the completion of funeral rites.


