More than a fortnight after a 10-year-old girl was found murdered in a water tank at Saraswati Kunj here, the police on Monday claimed to have worked out the case with the arrest of all the three accused.
According to the police, the trio kept the minor girl hostage in a jhuggi-jhonpri in Sector 43 here and repeatedly gang-raped her for four days before strangulating her to death.
The girl stayed with her family in a JJ cluster near Wazirabad village and had gone missing on January 16 under mysterious circumstances.
ADVERTISEMENT
A case of kidnapping was registered at the Sushant Lok Police Station. The police carried out searches in the neighbouring areas, but she could not be traced.
Black car clue
On January 23, a group of boys playing cricket in a ground in Saraswati Kunj spotted the body and informed the police. The girl’s parents are daily-wage labourers and belong to West Bengal.
ADVERTISEMENT
During the course of investigation, the police found that the victim was last seen getting inside a black car along with three persons. One of the suspects was later identified as Aizad Malik, 26, a native of West Bengal. He was arrested on February 11 and purportedly confessed to having committed the crime along with his accomplices Mukhtar Ali (30) and Jalil (22). The two were arrested on Monday.
Accused an acquaintance
Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Deepak Saharan said that Mukhtar was known to the victim who regarded him as her brother. Mukhtar along with the two others lured the girl inside the car on the pretext of giving her Rs. 300 in cash. The three allegedly took her to a JJ cluster in Sector 43, gagged her and tied her up. The three took turns to rape her for four days and brutalised her, the police said.
The trio then strangulated her to death and also tried to set her body on fire to avoid identification.
Aizad worked as a chauffeur for a private company and used his car to commit the crime.
More cases
Mr. Saharan said that the three were being interrogated for their possible involvement in two more cases of abduction and murder of minor girls reported in Gurugram over the past two months.
The police have not ruled out sexual assault in the two cases. In another case, a two-year-old girl abducted from Sadar Bazar in November is still missing.