Jajpur, Jan. 13: Police rescued an abducted school girl today, who was locked inside an abandoned house at an isolated area of the town and arrested four college students in this connection.

The key accused managed to flee.

Those arrested are all in the 19-21 age group. They are Kharavela Rout and Debiprasad Samal of Sanabazar, Manas Bhattacharya of Ambikai and Chiranjit Rout of Srirampur.

While Kharavela and Debiprasad are engineering students, Manas and Chiranjit are pursuing ITI courses.

The main accused, Raghunath Behera, alias Dipu, is still at large, police said.

According to the FIR filed with Jajpur town police by the father of the victim, the 14-year-old girl, a Class IX student, had gone to attend a scout and guides camp being held at Zilla School. She was expected to return home by 2pm on Saturday.

“When she failed to return home by 3pm, I went searching for her. But I neither found her at the camp at Zilla School nor at her own school. While returning, someone told me that my daughter was seen with an youth heading towards Sapanpur. I immediately went there and found her bicycle outside an abandoned building. I found four youths on roof of the building and one of the rooms of the building was locked from the outside. I smelt a rat and rushed to the police station and lodged a complaint.”

“We went to the abandoned building and saw four youths. We cordoned off the area and managed to arrest all the four who were in the building,” said Dipti Ranjan Roy, sub-divisional police officer of Jajpur.

“We rescued the girl, who was confined to a room of the abandoned house, after breaking the lock. But the principal accused managed to escape during the raid,” he said.

We have recorded the statement of the girl and conducted her medical examination at the district headquarters hospital, he said, adding the accused were sent to the court and later remanded to judicial custody after their bail pleas were rejected.