Another 3-yr-old girl found murdered in Bhiwandi slum

Bhiwandi: In a second such incident within four days, a three-year-old girl went missing from a slum locality and was found dead in a room in Nagaon slum pocket in the power-loom town early on Wednesday

Bhiwandi: In a second such incident within four days, a three-year-old girl went missing from a slum locality and was found dead in a room in Nagaon slum pocket in the power-loom town early on Wednesday.

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According to the police, the girl lived with her parents and two siblings. While her father worked in scrap business in the locality, her mother was a seamstress in a company.

A similar incident was reported from Katai village in Bhiwandi on Sunday night. A 26-year-old man from Bhiwandi was arrested for allegedly raping and killing a three-year-old girl.

According to police, on Tuesday, the girl’s parents had left for their respective workplaces in the morning while the girl was at home with her two brothers - a five-year-old and a six-year-old. When the mother returned home at about 1 pm for lunch, she found the girl missing. When she asked her sons about her, they said they could not find her too.

The girl’s parents began searching for her in the locality but failed to trace her. Following this, they approached the Shanti Nagar police station and lodged a missing complaint that evening, said police.

A police source in Shantinagar police station said, “We rushed and launched a door-to-door search operation in the locality that went on for around five to six hours and checked out dozens of houses adjacent to the girl’s house. But the girl could not be traced.”

However, on Wednesday morning, the girl’s body was found in the same chawl the family resided in. Navnath Dhavle, deputy commissioner of police, Bhiwandi said, “The body of the girl was found in an abandoned room on the first floor of the same chawl where the girl’s family lived on the ground floor.”

The chawl is in dilapidated condition and the abandoned room had no door and had gathered garbage and dirt.

“We have sent the girl’s body to J J hospital for post-mortem. We have formed five teams to nab the accused. One team will contact our reliable informers in the area and take aid of technical intelligence,” Dhavle said.

Dhavle added that prima facie, the girl appears to have been strangulated. A murder case has been registered against an unknown person.

In the Katai village incident, the girl was playing outside her home when the accused lured her to his room on the pretext of giving her some goodies.

After a missing complaint was lodged and a door-to-door search was ordered, the police found the man seated next to the body of girl in a room not far from her house.