PALGHAR: An eight-year-old tribal girl was hacked to death allegedly by a man believed to be her relative in Maharashtra's Palghar district, police said on Tuesday.
The incident took place around 1:30 pm on Monday near a zilla parishad school in Dahanu taluka following which the 46-year-old accused ran away, an official from the district rural police control room said, adding efforts were on to nab him.
It was not yet known whether the child was sexually abused and what was the motive behind the killing, he said, adding that the postmortem report was awaited. The accused allegedly attacked the girl with a sickle, injuring her seriously, the official said.
He said that a passerby saw the child being attacked and tried to save her, but the accused hit him also with the sickle and then fled from the spot. "After being alerted, police reached the spot and rushed the girl to a nearby hospital where doctors declared her brought dead," the official said.
The body was subsequently sent for postmortem. The man who had tried to save the girl was injured in the attack by the accused and was admitted to a hospital, the official said. The Dahanu police registered a case against the accused under Indian Penal Code Sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder), he said. Efforts were on to trace him, he added.