An 11-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped while sleeping beside her family on a pavement, raped and murdered in south Delhi’s Mehrauli area, the police said on Tuesday.
The accused, a cab driver, allegedly disposed of the girl’s body in a forested area along the Faridabad-Gurugram road in an attempt to cover up the crime. He was traced and arrested within six hours of the incident, the police said. The girl’s family, who lived on a footpath, raised an alarm in the early hours of Monday after they could not find her. Suspecting abduction, they alerted the police, who launched a search operation and began examining CCTV footage from the area.
“The accused, a cab driver in his early 30s and a native of Bihar, abducted the girl around 5 am when she was asleep with her family. A case of kidnapping was registered immediately and a search operation was launched. During CCTV footage analysis, the police got to know about the cab driver,” a senior police officer said. Nearly 20 teams were formed to trace the child and identify the suspect, the officer added.
According to police officials, the accused attempted to return to the same spot after committing the crime but fled on spotting the police teams nearby.
The police said technical surveillance and CCTV analysis were key to the swift breakthrough. During interrogation, the accused confessed to abducting the minor, sexually assaulting her and strangling her to death.
Acting on his confession, the police recovered the girl’s body late Monday from a forested stretch along the Faridabad-Gurugram road, where the accused had allegedly dumped it in an attempt to conceal the crime. The body has been sent for the post-mortem examination to determine the exact cause of death and gather medico-legal evidence.
Forensic experts examined both the abduction site and the spot where the body was found and have collected samples and other evidence for analysis.
