An 11-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped while sleeping beside her family on a pavement, raped and murdered in south Delhi's Mehrauli area, police officials said on Tuesday.
The accused, a cab driver, dumped her body in a forested stretch along the Faridabad-Gurugram road in an attempt to conceal the crime. He was arrested within six hours of the incident, police said.
The incident came to light after the family, who lived on a footpath in the area, couldn't find the girl in the early hours of Monday. Suspecting her kidnapping, the family members called the police, and teams reached the spot for investigation and checked CCTV footage of the area.
"The accused, a cab driver in his early 30s and a native of Bihar, abducted the girl around 5 am when she was asleep with her family. A case of kidnapping was registered immediately, and a large-scale search operation was launched. During CCTV footage checking, police got to know about the cab driver," a senior police officer said.
The officer said that nearly 20 teams were formed to trace the child and identify the suspect who tracked the movements of the accused.
A police source said, "After committing the crime, the accused was returning to the same location, but fled after watching police teams nearby. Teams tracked his movements, and he was arrested within six hours after the crime."
Police said technical surveillance and CCTV analysis played a crucial role in solving the case swiftly.
During sustained interrogation, the accused confessed to abducting the minor, sexually assaulting her, and later strangling her to death.
Acting on his disclosure, teams recovered the body from the spot late Monday and sent it for a postmortem to determine the exact cause of death and gather medico-legal evidence.
Forensic experts examined both the place from where the girl was abducted and the location where her body was dumped.
Samples and other evidence have been collected for analysis.
Police said they are probing the exact sequence of events, including whether the accused acted alone and if he had any prior criminal record.
(With inputs from PTI)