JAJPUR: Police arrested a man on Saturday on the charge of raping an eight-year-old girl, his neighbour, at a village in Odisha's Jajpur district.
The incident took place when the girl had gone to a Laxmi Puja pandal near Jaraka Bazar in Dharmasala area on Thursday evening, police said.
According to the complaint filed by her father, the 28-year-old accused lured the girl with snacks and took her on his bi-cycle to the nearby forest and raped her.
He then brought her back and dumped her a few metres from home.
After reaching home, the girl narrated her ordeal to her mother.
Her father, along with other villagers, went to the house of the accused but he had fled by then, police said.
The girl's father lodged an FIR on Friday and the police arrested the accused from a nearby village.
Police conducted medical examination on both the accused and the minor girl at the district headquarters hospital at Jajpur town.
A local court remanded him to judicial custody for 14 days.