Police recovered the body of 15-year-old Class VIII student Rupesh Kumar from a bamboo grove in Bairwa village in Bihar’s Madhepura district on Wednesday morning, a day after he went missing, and said preliminary investigation suggested murder.
Rupesh, the only son of Jaikant Yadav, lived in Bairwa village under the Mithai Police Camp area of Sadar block. His family had been searching for him since Tuesday evening but could not locate him until villagers found his body the following morning.
According to the report, some village women spotted the body in the bamboo grove and alerted other residents. The family and police were subsequently informed. Officers from the Mithai Police Camp, Sadar police station and the office of the Sadar sub-divisional police officer reached the location and inspected the area.
The body was sent for postmortem examination, while a Forensic Science Laboratory team collected evidence from the scene. Sadar SDPO Ajay Kumar said there were injury marks near the teenager’s ears and neck. He said the precise cause of death and the reason behind it would be established only after the postmortem report and the FSL investigation.
The police have not announced any arrests or identified a suspect. The family had not submitted a written complaint at the time of the report, and officers said further investigation was underway.
The case places the focus on the sequence between Rupesh’s disappearance and the discovery of his body, as well as on the evidence collected from the grove. The postmortem and forensic examination are expected to establish whether the injuries were linked to the death and help investigators reconstruct what happened.
Rupesh’s death also highlights the importance of the initial response in missing-person cases, including timely information-sharing between families, local residents and the police. In this case, the search continued through Tuesday night before the body was located by villagers early on Wednesday.
Police said the investigation would proceed on the basis of the postmortem findings, forensic evidence and other information gathered during the inquiry.
