In what has become a piece of bad news for the cricket fans and fraternity across and beyond the borders, a 26-year-old woman cricketer Rajashree Swain, who went missing, was found dead in a dense forest in Odisha. After recovering her body, the police sent it to perform an autopsy. 

Rajashree Swain was found hanging from a tree inside a dense forest in Cuttack, Odisha on Friday. A native of Puri, Swain had come to Cuttack to attend a cricket training camp organised by the Odisha Cricket Association for an upcoming national-level tournament in Puducherry. She was staying at a hotel and on January 11, she went missing. 

Her teammates had tried reaching her over the phone. But, she was not reachable after which Swain's coach Pushpanjali Banerjee filed a missing complaint at the Mangalabag police station in Cuttack. The police launched a probe into her disappearance and three days after she went missing, the police found her hanging in a tree in a dense forest in Cuttack on Friday. 

The two-wheeler that Swain used was found abandoned near the forest. Cuttack's Deputy Commissioner of Police Pinak Mishra said, "A case of unnatural death has been registered in the matter. We found her body hanging from a tree in Gurudijhatia forest in Athagarh area. We will probe the death from all angles." Mishra further said that the cause of Swain's death will be known in the post-mortem report. 

It has been reported that Swain didn't make up into the 16-member team selected for the tournament. Swain's roommate said, "She was crying on Wednesday evening after the names of team members were announced, and went missing from the hotel, where we had all put up for the training session, shortly after." 

Swain's family members alleged that she was murdered as there were injury marks on her body and her eyes were damaged. While her family said that Swain didn't get inducted into the team despite performing better than others, Odisha Cricket Association's chief Subrat Behera said that the selection was done in a very transparent manner. Behera stated, "If there was prejudice, how is that she found a place in the 25-member team, which attended the camp."