Palghar, Jun 19 (PTI) Police have arrested two persons for allegedly raping and killing a 16-year-old tribal girl who was found dead a few days back at a farm in Maharashtra's Palghar district, an official said on Sunday.

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The girl had left her house in Jawhar taluka here on Tuesday morning to take care of their cashew and mango farm located nearby, but did not return home.

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On Wednesday evening, some passers-by had spotted her body, with the head smashed, in a pit at another agriculture field in the area and alerted police, he said.

The police later sent the body to a government hospital for postmortem which confirmed she was raped, Jawhar police station inspector Appasaheb Lengre said.

A police team subsequently started a probe into the case and worked on intelligence inputs. They arrested two men, aged 19 and 21, from the same area on Saturday, he said.

The police learnt that the two accused had followed the girl and intercepted her midway. They allegedly raped her and then killed her, and dumped the body in the farm pit and covered it with stones and grass, the official said.

A case was registered against the duo under relevant Indian Penal Code sections for rape and murder, and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the official said.

Further probe into the case is underway, he added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)