Rape, lynching, encounter and murder: Baruipur becomes flashpoint for Bengal's law and order crisis in 4 days
Times of India | 9 July 2026
KOLKATA: In the span of three to four days, the quiet town of Baruipur in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district has witnessed a rape, a murder, a lynching and a police encounter killing — a spiral of violence that has left the area under heavy police deployment and raised uncomfortable questions about the collapse of law and order in the region.
The girl who went missing
The chain of events began on July 4, when an 12-year-old girl went missing from the Surjyapur Haat area. Her body was recovered from a nearby pond the next day, stuffed inside a sack.
According to police, it was last Saturday that the minor girl had left home around 4 pm saying she was going to a friend’s birthday party. After that, she went missing. While searching for her, it was the locals who reviewed footage from several CCTV cameras in the area and informed police about the possible role of Prabhas.
In the footage, the victim was seen walking with a young man wearing a blue T-shirt and a red cap. He was identified as Prabhas by the locals and was placed under arrest soon after. During interrogation, police arrested three more accused — Anand Sardar, Dibakar Sardar, and on Tuesday, another youth named Kabir Molla.
Of these, both Ananda and Dibakar were arrested at the instance of Prabhas, with police sources claiming even Molla’s name first came up during the questioning of Prabhas.
Senior officers stated that Prabash was the first break in the case as he was the last person with whom the victim was found alive and that his statement resulted in the arrest of two other accused the following day. “He claimed that the co-accused offered him some money (Rs 10, 000) to bring the child to them. Further investigation is being done in this regard,” he added.
The other accused in this case were all Prabhas’s companions in substance abuse. Even after his arrest, claimed police, he initially tried to mislead the police by giving false information. But after the other accused were arrested based on leads connected to him, police questioned each of them separately, which eventually revealed his key role in the crime.
Man lynched as mob goes on rampage
The recovery of the girl's body triggered widespread outrage. Angry locals blocked the Baruipur-Joynagar Road, set tyres ablaze and vandalised police vehicles, demanding immediate arrest and punishment for those responsible. In the chaos that followed, a man was lynched by a mob on suspicion of involvement in the crime.
West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari said on Tuesday that the victim of this mob attack was innocent, and directed DGP Siddh Nath Gupta to submit a report on the rape-murder case within 72 hours. Adhikari also said his government has a "zero tolerance" policy towards the crime.
The prime accused gunned down
Even as the town grappled with the fallout of the lynching, the investigation into the girl's death took a violent turn of its own. Prabhas Mondal, the first person arrested in the case and considered a prime suspect after CCTV footage purportedly showed him with the minor shortly before she went missing, was killed in an alleged police encounter early Wednesday.
Police said Mondal was taken to Surjyapur around 12.45 am for a crime scene reconstruction — a step investigators resorted to after he had allegedly been misleading them and refusing to cooperate.
During the exercise, officers said, he snatched a service firearm from a policeman, fired one round at the police team, and was shot in what officials described as self-defence. He was declared dead at Baruipur Sub-Divisional Hospital.
A football match ends in a killing
In a fourth, seemingly unconnected incident, 17-year-old Prosenjit Biswas was hacked to death on Monday following a dispute after his team won a football match at Sitakundu ground in Baruipur.
Police said that after his team's victory, Biswas was allegedly targeted by a group of youths and intercepted by three persons while returning home, who attacked him with sharp weapons.
He was rescued by local residents and taken to Baruipur Sub-Divisional Hospital, where he was declared dead. Three persons have been detained in connection with the case, and police said the exact motive is still being investigated, PTI reported.
News of his death also sparked tension in the area, with residents staging protests outside the hospital and allegations of vandalism at a nearby police camp.
A town on edge
Taken together, the four incidents — unfolding within days of each other and largely within a few kilometres of one another — paint a picture of a town where grief, suspicion and vigilante anger have repeatedly boiled over into violence.
Additional police forces have been deployed in the area to maintain law and order, even as investigations into both the rape-murder case and the football-dispute killing remain underway.