An eight-year-old girl, who had moved to Delhi only a few weeks ago to pursue her education, was allegedly kidnapped, raped, and murdered in West Delhi’s Uttam Nagar.
The girl’s body was recovered from a swamp in a forested area close to her home in Kala Basti locality on Thursday morning when some children went there to relieve themselves.
It turned out that the suspect had been held by the police within hours of the girl being discovered missing on Tuesday, but had been set free within 24 hours as the police could not get him to “confess” to any crime.
The suspect was again picked up by the police on Thursday, soon after the body was discovered. According to the police, he has now confessed to raping the girl and strangling her. He turned out to be a distant cousin of the victim.
The police said that they let off the suspect as he may be a juvenile.
While the suspect’s Aadhaar card shows him to be born in 1997, and thus over 18 years of age, DCP (West) Pushpendra Kumar said they would verify his school certificates and other documents to be sure of his age.
The girl was a native of Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh, and lived with her parents and two younger brothers. Both her parents work as sanitation staff at a school in nearby Vikaspuri.
The victim was playing outside her home around 5.30 pm on Tuesday when neighbours last saw her.
When the girl did not return home even by 7 pm, her parents and neighbours launched a search for her.
Locals said that the suspect had also joined them in the search, but had allegedly kept them away from the spot where the body was discovered.
Within minutes they got the first clue. “I found the girl’s father crying on the street. He showed me her photograph, and asked if I had seen her anywhere,” said Sunil, a local youth.
Sunil claimed that he had seen the suspect holding the girl’s hand in a local playground. “I was returning from work when he stopped me and asked me for a cigarette. The girl was with him,” alleged Sunil.
Ram Shankar, a local shopkeeper, claimed that minutes before the family realised that the girl had gone missing, the suspect had bought two packets of biscuits from him. Shankar believes that the girl was lured with them.
The police were informed the same night, and the suspect apprehended. He was interrogated through the night and until Wednesday evening, and released. The DCP claimed that the girl’s family members were also convinced during the interrogation that the suspect was innocent, one of the factors for releasing him.
It was around 10.30 am on Thursday that a local boy, Aniket, along with some friends, visited the nearby jungle to relieve themselves. “I noticed something floating in the swamp nearby. I threw a stone at it, but there was no reaction.
When we went closer, we realised it was a body,” said Aniket.
According to some locals, the girl’s clothes were missing above her waist. The suspect was again detained after some locals told the police that they had seen his clothes stained with mud from a swamp.
Meanwhile, angry with the police for letting off the suspect, who they believe killed the girl after being set free, locals set his motorcycle ablaze, gathered outside the Uttam Nagar police station, and damaged the gates of the building until senior officers convinced them to return to their homes.
