The Thane police on Tuesday arrested a 19-year-old man on charges of raping and murdering a minor girl in Mumbra. The crime came to light after locals heard a loud thud coming from a window duct and discovered a girl’s body, which he had allegedly thrown from the other end.
According to the police, the locals found the body of a partially-clothed girl when they checked the duct from the bathroom of a first-floor apartment in a building around 11 pm on Monday.
A police team reached the spot after they were informed by locals and managed to retrieve the body with the help of the fire brigade. Emergency services, including personnel from the Mumbra police station, fire brigade teams, regional disaster management cell and a private ambulance reached the spot.
According to Thane Municipal Corporation’s chief Yasin Tadvi, the girl was found lying in a vertical duct running through the structure under unclear circumstances.
The officials retrieved the child despite a challenging rescue operation due to the narrow structure of the shaft. She was then taken to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital in Kalwa where doctors declared her brought dead, Tadvi said.
After the girl’s body was recovered, a police probe team checked every flat in the building and found a window of the bathroom in the accused person’s house open from where he allegedly pushed the girl, a police official said.
The police initially filed an accidental death report. After the postmortem report indicated that the girl had been raped and murdered, they registered a case. A girl, who used to play with the victim, told the police that the latter had been lured by a man who promised to give her toys, and he had taken her to the building where the body was found.
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Based on her description, the police started rounding up suspects and caught the accused. The other girl identified him as the man who had lured her friend, the police said, adding that he confessed to the crime after sustained interrogation.
The police said that some clothes of the girl were found where the accused lived.
The incident was reported at 11.48 pm on Monday to the Thane Municipal Corporation’s disaster management cell, Tadvi said.
The police on Tuesday initially registered a case under sections 103 (murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act against the man, a police official said.
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An autopsy was conducted on the victim, which confirmed that she was raped and her throat was slit with a sharp weapon, he said.
Based on the autopsy report, the police added BNS sections 96 (procuration of a child), 137 (2) (kidnapping), 64 (rape), 64 (I) (raping woman incapable of giving consent), 65 (2) (rape on woman under 12 years of age) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender), he said.
(with PTI inputs)