LUCKNOW: The police arrested two more men for the murder of a toddler in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, on Saturday and confirmed one of the men booked for the crime is an alleged sex offender, who had targeted children.
The brother and wife of Zahid, one of the two main accused, were picked up on Saturday morning by the special investigation team formed to probe the killing of the two-and-a-half-year-old girl.
“They were later arrested,” a senior police official said.
These arrests take the total number of people arrested in the case to four. Other than Zahid, police arrested Aslam, 43, on Tuesday after the girl’s decomposed body was found in a garbage dump around 200 metres from her home. The body was discovered on June 2, three days after she was reported missing.
The girl’s father alleged she was killed because he failed to repay Rs10,000 taken as loan from the accused.
Aslam was charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act in 2014 and 2017, police said. He has also faced charges under Uttar Pradesh’s Goonda Act. The second POCSO case, in Delhi’s Gokulpuri, also involved the abduction of the minor.
Aligarh SSP Akash Kulhari confirmed one of the two accused had a criminal history. Two separate cases of POCSO are pending against him and he had gone to jail in connection with an abduction case in Delhi, the SSP said. Kulhari said officials probing the Aligarh case are looking into the phone records of all suspects.
“The police are building a water-tight case against the accused so that it stands all legal scrutiny and speedy justice is delivered through a fast-track court. We are checking phone records of all suspects to trace the crime trail,” he said.
Tension had prevailed in the area after the victim’s family alleged that police officials delayed the registration of their complaint and the probe.
Five policemen have been suspended for negligence and Kulhari on Friday assured the locals that justice would be done in the case.