Labourer nabbed from Rajasthan for rape, murder of Uttarakhand nurse

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A nurse working at a private hospital in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, was allegedly raped and murdered by a labourer. The accused, identified as Dharmendra, was arrested from Rajasthan on Tuesday, the police said on Friday.

The nurse went missing on July 30 while returning home from work. The police began an investigation into the case after the victim's sister lodged a missing complaint the next day.

During interrogation, Dharmendra revealed that he followed the nurse while she was returning home from work with the intention to rob her as he was in need of money, said Superintendent of Police of Uttarakhand's Udham Singh Nagar Manjunath TC.

When she reached a deserted area, he forcibly took her to the bushes and throttled her unconscious with a scarf when she tried to raise an alarm. The accused then raped her and killed her by crushing her face with a stone, the police officer said. According to the police, the accused then took all the money from her purse, along with her mobile phone and other valuables. He then purportedly dumped her body in a vacant plot in Uttar Pradesh's Dibdiba village, which is located near the Uttarakhand border and fled, the police said.

Meanwhile, based on the complaint made by the victim's sister, the police began tracing her with the help of CCTV footage and her mobile phone location. The spot from where the nurse's body was recovered is not far from her residence in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur district, which is on the border of Uttarakhand's Udham Singh Nagar district.

The nurse's body was recovered from Dibdiba village on August 8, with her face mutilated beyond recognition, Manjunath said.

Dharmendra worked as a labourer in Uttarakhand's Gadarpur and hails from Bareilly district of Uttar Pradesh.

The incident comes amid widespread protests over the rape and murder of a trainee doctor working in a state-run medical college and hospital in Kolkata. The 31-year-old doctor was raped and murdered in a seminar hall of the hospital. Following the Kolkata High Court order, the case has been transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation from the police.

(With PTI inputs)