JAIPUR: The Jaipur rural police on Friday claimed to have solved the rape and murder case of a four-year-old girl within 20 hours of recovering her body by assigning the task to over 700 policemen, according to an official.
The victim had gone missing from her house on Wednesday evening and her body was found on Thursday in an isolated area near a water pond, around 3 km away from her house.
Family members and villagers refused to take the body and started a dharna at a health centre under the Narena police station area in Jaipur rural on Thursday.
Looking at the seriousness of the case, Jaipur Rural SP Shankar Dutt Sharma engaged all three additional SPs, five DSPs and 26 SHOs under him to solve it.
"Along with them, 700 policemen were engaged in the case. Teams were formed and around 20 suspects were picked. It was a blind case with no clue or evidence and therefore it was a major challenge for us," the SP told reporters at the Narena police station.
The accused, Suresh Balai, was arrested within 20 hours of recovering the body, he said.
Sharma said the accused is a resident of a village under the Narena police station and has been married for five years.
He said it was a challenging task to identify the accused because there was no clue.
The accused do not carry a mobile phone.
"On Wednesday evening, he was on his way home when he saw the victim outside her house. He picked her and took near the pond where he raped and murdered her," he said.
When police were making efforts, hundreds of villagers gathered outside the health centre, demanding immediate arrest of the accused.
He said a 15-km area around the site of the incident was searched.