8-year-old girl battered to death in Narela in ‘revenge attack’

Footage from a CCTV camera that captured the man taking the girl along helped the police identify and arrest the suspect within two hours of the matter being reported to the police, investigators said.

A 22-year-old man allegedly kidnapped an eight-year-old girl living in his neighbourhood in outer Delhi’s Narela on Friday evening, took her nearly a kilometre away to an isolated place, where he strangled and battered her to death allegedly to take revenge on her brother, police said.

The suspect, who is a Muslim, was arrested and booked for kidnapping and killing the girl, a Hindu.

Footage from a CCTV camera that captured the man taking the girl along helped the police identify and arrest the suspect within two hours of the matter being reported to the police, investigators said.

The suspect, who is a Muslim, was arrested and booked for kidnapping and killing the girl, a Hindu.

Senior police officers ruled out a communal angle behind the crime. They also clarified that the initial autopsy report of the girl confirmed that she was not raped or sexually assaulted before or after the murder. The autopsy was conducted on Saturday, said deputy commissioner of police (outer-north) Devesh Kumar Mahla.

“The post-mortem examination of the girl was conducted. The report confirmed strangulation and skull fractures. No visible signs of sexual assault. The doctor has also ruled out any kind of sexual assault,” added DCP Mahla.

The family members, relatives and neighbours of the minor girl staged a protest in the locality on Saturday, alleging that the suspect killed the girl under the influence of drugs. However, the protesters dispersed after senior police officers met them and assured action into their allegations that narcotics were being sold openly in their locality.

DCP Mahla said that around 10pm on Friday, the police were informed that an eight-year-old girl has gone missing from outside her home in Narela. The police scanned footage from cameras installed in the neighbourhood, one of which showed the child walking with a person. The person was identified and by around 11.30pm he was taken into custody for questioning, the DCP said.

“Initially, he tried to mislead us by blaming one local resident behind the girl’s disappearance. But on cross-verification and further interrogation, he confessed to kidnapping and murdering the girl. He took us to the place of the murder, where we found the girl’s body,” the DCP said.

Interrogation of the arrested man, Mahla said, revealed that he had enmity with the 21-year-old brother of the girl.

The chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) Swati Maliwal on Saturday tweeted, “The head of an 8-year-old girl was crushed by a stone in Narela. This is the condition of Delhi, the capital of the country. The family says that the neighbour and his accomplice kidnapped their daughter, raped her and then killed her. We are issuing a notice to the Delhi Police. How will all this end? How long will daughters keep dying like this?”

Police said the suspect was not aided by anyone and added that the victim was not sexually assaulted.