COIMBATORE: A two-year-old girl’s body was found in a disused well under mysterious circumstances at Dhanalakshmi Nagar near Vilankurichi on the outskirts of the city on Monday. While none of the six members in the house noticed the toddler leaving the house, police suspected the child’s body could have been dumped into the well by a person known to the her, an angle lent credence by the claims of neighbours about hearing the screams of the child in the dead of the night (around 2 am).
Sources said that the child, along with her parents, was paying a visit to her mother’s paternal uncle Kuppuraj at Annur on Sunday. During the course of the day, other relatives too came to check on an ailing Kuppuraj. The child and her parents decided to stay for the night after other relatives had left.
Around 1 am, the child’s mother saw her sleeping beside her. When she checked on the girl around 3 am, she was missing. The mother immediately raised an alarm, following which a search was launched. The Peelamedu police too were alerted. After their search nearby yielded no result, around 6 am, the family went into a karuvelam kadu (a disused place surrounded by bushes and karuvelam trees) around 150 metres from the house, where they found the body of the child in a 30-metre-deep well.
Assuming the child was unconscious, the family members mounted a rescue mission and rushed her to a private hospital, where she was declared ‘dead on arrival’.
The maternal uncle of the child said that they went to the karuvelam kadu after a vain search nearby. “We found her body in a disused well. There is no way she could have reached there alone as the spot is difficult to enter even during daytime,” he added.
Meanwhile, other family members said there was no scope for anyone from outside to just walk into the house. “While the doors were not locked as there was some issue, the house owner used to sleep outside. An early riser, the house owner would have woken up hearing anything suspicious. Moreover, there always are two dogs on night watch. The child was asleep next to her parents. These facts point towards insider hand in the murder.”
The Peelamedu police registered a case under section 174 (suspicious death) of the CrPC. The family members and relatives, who were home at the time of the incident, were taken to the police station for inquiry. Police, however, did not commit to any inference and said more details would emerge based on the findings from the postmortem examination at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital. However, Deputy Commissioner (Law and order) L Balaji Saravanan said that two special teams have been formed to investigate the death.
*(names withheld till charges are framed)
Minor sexually assaulted
Chennai: A 16-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by her neighbour in Kancheepuram. At around 2.30 am, the front door of the house was kept open because of the heat. At that time, a man entered, gagged and sexually assaulted the girl, who was asleep in the front room. She did raise an alarm, but he managed to escape. Initial investigation identified the man as the girl’s neighbour. He has been detained for inquiry.