Dalit girl’s rape-murder in Delhi: Four accused sent to three-day police custody

The investigating officer in the case informed the court that new facts have emerged during the investigation and further custody of the accused was required for five days. The remand application was opposited by the accused’s counsel.

A Delhi court on Monday sent four people, accused in the alleged rape and murder of a nine-year-old Dalit girl in south west Delhi’s Delhi cantonment area, to three-day police custody.

A pyre inside a crematorium where the 9-year-old girl was cremated on August 1. Angry villagers held a protest saying the girl was raped and killed. (AP)

Additional sessions judge Ashutosh Kumar remanded the four accused—Kuldeep Singh, Laxmi Narayan, Radhey Shyam and Salim Ahmad---to custodial interrogation till August 12.

On August 1, a nine-year-old girl was allegedly raped and killed by a priest and three employees of a crematorium in Purani Nangal village, near Delhi Cantonment. The suspects allegedly told the family that she died of electrocution when she was fetching water from an electric water cooler installed at the crematorium. They allegedly cremated her body after threatening her parents not to tell the police about the incident.

Police had said the four men were arrested after the girl’s family alleged foul play.

The investigating officer in the case informed the court that new facts have emerged during the investigation and further custody of the accused was required for five days.

The remand application was opposed by the counsels for the accused who argued that there is no evidence against the accused and neither has the police presented a justified ground for grant of custody.

The four men have been booked for murder, rape and criminal intimidation, a case regarding which was registered under Indian Penal Code’s sections 302, 376 and 506, in addition to relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the SC/ST Act.