A nine-year-old girl was allegedly abducted, raped, and strangled to death by her landlord in north Delhi’s Swaroop Nagar, after which the body was dumped in a canal by the accused, the police said on Tuesday.
The body is yet to be recovered while the accused was arrested on Monday.
Taking cognisance of the crime, Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chairperson Swati Maliwal has issued a notice to the area station house officer (SHO), seeking a detailed report of the investigation by December 22.
She also asked to explain the reason behind the “delay” in taking action.
According to the FIR lodged by the girl’s family, the girl had gone missing when she was playing outside their rented accommodation around 2 p.m. on December 12.
The police said the CCTV footage of the area showed the girl accompanying the accused to his car.
Body dumped in canal
DCP (Outer North) Ravi Kumar Singh said the accused confessed during interrogation that he drove her around and then took her to an isolated place to commit the crime.
“He raped her inside the vehicle. When she started crying out for help and threatened to tell her parents, the accused strangled her to death and dumped the body in the Munak canal,” he added.
The police said that three days after the incident, the accused met with an accident in the Alipur area and was hospitalised on Friday.
The police interrogated him only after he was discharged from the hospital, the DCP said, adding that he confessed to committing the crime during questioning.
The police said they have roped in multiple divers to search for the body in the canal.
The police have booked the accused under Indian Penal Code sections related to kidnapping, murder and destruction of evidence besides Section 6 of the POCSO Act, which deals with aggravated sexual assault on a minor.
“We will be booking him under Section 375 (rape) of the IPC once the body is recovered,” added a senior officer.
