VILLUPURAM: The drowning case of a 10-year-old girl near Tindivanam took a cruel twist after police found that she was raped and murdered. Police arrested a man from the village and in the inquiry, he allegedly confessed the crime. According to a police source from Bramadesam station, on September 3, the girl who lived in a village near Tindivanam was sent by her mother to a shop nearby to buy curry leaves, but didn’t return home.
When her mother enquired with the shop owner, she was told that the girl had not come to the shop. The woman, along with her husband and relatives, began a search and when they could not find the girl, filed a police complaint. The next day, her body was found in a pond at a closed stone quarry near the village. Police retrieved her body and sent it for autospy to the government medical college hospital at Mundiampakkam.
Even as the ‘missing’ case was changed to suspicious death, the autopsy report that arrived confirmed that she was raped and murdered by drowning in the pond. Police then changed the case again to murder and during inquires, found that her parents had enmity with R Magendiran (42) of the same village, who had also worked in the closed quarry.
During the inquiry on Tuesday, he allegedly confessed that he murdered the girl. He told police that he killed her as he was angry with her parents over various issues. Further, he also said he enticed the girl, who was on her way to the shop, by saying that he was fishing in the pond nearby, and when she accompanied him, raped her. As she fainted, he threw her in the pond and left. As everyone initially assumed the girl had drowned, Magendiran roamed free in the village, but was eventually nabbed by police. He was presented before Tindivanam magistrate and remanded at Cuddalore jail.