Garhwa, March 23 A 27-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly raping and killing a teenage girl in the Garhwa district of Jharkhand, police said on Monday.
The arrest was made on Sunday after a month of investigation and interrogation of around 600 people, they said.
The incident took place at the Ramkanda police station on February 21 when the 17-year-old girl went out to relieve herself, they added.
"The girl had come to the village to attend a wedding with her mother and sister. Late that night, she went out to relieve herself," SP Aman Kumar said.
The accused began following the girl, and when she saw him, she ran. But she fell on the road, and he caught her, police said.
The accused tore her clothes and put them in her mouth to stop her from screaming. He then took her to a farmland, where he raped her and strangled her to death, they said.
Police recovered her body on February 23, and formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the incident.
Besides interrogating around 600 people who attended the wedding, the investigators also checked the call records of 200 people during the investigation, police said.
The slippers left behind by the accused near the crime scene provided a breakthrough in the case, they said.
