RAIPUR: A six-year-old girl, who had gone missing at Om Nagar in Durg district of Chhattisgarh on Sunday, was raped and murdered and her body dumped in a car, the police said on Monday.
Three suspects were initially detained and separately interrogated, following which one among them confessed to his crime, and he has been taken on remand on Monday, said the Durg police.
“On the occasion of the Navratri festival, the girl had gone to her relative for Kanya pujan (bhoj). A complaint about her missing was lodged by the police. After getting information about the body of the girl lying inside a car, we recovered it and detained the driver and car owner, who were among the three primary suspects and questioned them. The short autopsy report confirmed sexual assault.
During the interrogation and other circumstantial evidence gathered by us, we arrived at the conclusion that the actual culprit is Somesh Yadav. He is the uncle of the girl and has confessed his crime”, said Sukhnandan Rathor, additional superintendent of police (Durg).
There were injury marks of bruising on her body. The Durg police will further collect additional physical evidence and carry out DNA tests of the criminal suspect and other samples gathered at the scene of the crime.
The police ruled out any family dispute as the reason behind committing the crime. “What led the uncle to carry out the crime at his place will be investigated”, the ASP Durg added.
Rathor said that the case is now being investigated under various sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) related to rape of a girl under twelve years of age, remove or concealing evidence related to a crime, murder among other related offence.
The Durg police said to ensure trial be done of this heinous crime through fast track court and the criminal get punished. There were massive protests by the people in the area demanding to handover the prime accused to them and that a stringent punishment be meted out to him.