Jagatsinghpur: A 25-year-old man accused of raping a minor girl ended his life in Kujang police limits of the district fearing arrest.

The accused hanged himself at his hours within hours of allegedly committing the crime on Saturday after the girl's father lodged a police complaint.

Gopi Samal, the accused, allegedly raped the minor girl when she was alone in her house. The crime, according to the FIR lodged in afternoon, was committed during earlier in the day.

The police had registered a case against the accused under IPC sections 376 (outraging the modesty), 341 (wrongful restraint), section-342 (wrongful confinement), section-506 (criminal intimidation) and sections- 4 and 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offence Act, 2012.

The girl was sent for medical examination and the cops were looking to arrest the man, who had fled from the village. "The accused had fled from the village after committing the crime. The disgrace and stigma of being referred to as a 'rapist' might have driven him to commit suicide. Samal, who was a contractual worker in a Paradip-based private company was unmarried. He returned home late in the evening and locked himself up in a room and hanged himself from the ceiling fan," inspector Kujang police station Dillip Kumar Sahu said.

Both the accused and the girl lived in the same village. So, the girl did not object to his visiting her house.

Around a dozen of child rape cases have been registered in Jagatsinghpur district in the past 45 days. The offenders in all these cases were either known to the girl or were people living in the neighbourhood.