(From top:) Rima Dawn; police with a sniffer dog in the field where Rima’s body was found on Friday. Picture on right by Mousumi Mukherjee

Burdwan, Sept. 10: Anishtho Saha was speaking to his childhood friend Rima Dawn over the phone last evening when she suddenly screamed. Anishtho then heard the loud barking of dogs before the line went dead.

Rima’s body was found this morning in a paddy field in Burdwan 300 metres from her home, her face smeared with mud, her clothes stripped off. Police said they suspected that the 21-year-old college student had been raped before being throttled.

The police said Rima, a third-year mathematics honours student of Vivekananda College in Burdwan town, was returning home to Bishweswarbati village, 35km away, last evening. She used to live in a hostel near the college.

Sadhan Banerjee, the officer in charge of Raina police station, said: “We suspect she was raped and murdered. She was lying on her back in the paddy field. Her clothes had been stripped off and there were bloodstains on the inner surface of her thighs.”

“We are waiting for the post-mortem report. We are investigating whether more than one person was involved,” he added.

Another police officer said Rima may have been kidnapped and taken to some other place where she was raped and killed. “It’s possible that her body was thrown into the field,” he said.

The officer added: “She had visited her home on Tuesday. She returned to Burdwan town and attended college yesterday morning. She was not expected back home before Saturday. But she again left for home in the evening without informing her parents.”

Rima’s father Mahadeb, a retired army subedar, said Anishtho called up her mother around 6.45pm and told her that he had been speaking to Rima for 30 minutes when she screamed all of a sudden and the line went dead. Anishtho, who studies in an engineering college in Siliguri, was returning to Raina by train when he had called up Rima, Mahadeb said.

“We tried to call Rima several times on her cellphone but could not get through. After 9pm, we found that the phone had been switched off,” Mahadeb, 51, said.

The police detained Anishtho after he returned to Raina this morning and are interrogating him.

Villagers gheraoed the police when they came to the field to take Rima’s body away. They demanded that sniffer dogs be brought and the killers be arrested immediately.

“We knew Rima. She was a good student. We will not allow the police to take the body for post-mortem. They will go away and forget about the case. The police will have to give us a written assurance that they will arrest the guilty as soon as possible,” said Ashok Santra, a farmer.

The protesters let the police take the body away after Burdwan superintendent of police R. Rajsekharan arrived around 4pm and assured them that steps would be taken to arrest the killers.