Missing minor girl’s body found in mangrove forest in Nalasopara

Body of missing 13-year-old girl found in mangrove area near Ganpati pandal in Nalasopara. Police investigating cause of death. #Mumbai

Mumbai: The body of a 13-year-old girl who went missing on Friday night was found in a mangrove area near a Ganpati pandal in Nalasopara on Sunday. According to the police, the girl, Riya Nishad, had told her parents that she was going to the Ganpati pandal near her house for an all-night event. The girl’s parents assumed that she had gone to her friend’s house after the event and would return on Saturday morning.

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When Nishad did not return home, her parents approached the police and registered a missing complaint. On Sunday morning, the police received a call that a girl’s body was discovered in the mangrove area behind the Ekvira temple in Nalasopara West.

“The temple is at a distance of three kilometres from the pandal, and we assume that Nishad might have gone there with friends and slipped and fell,” said a police officer from Nalasopara police station.

The girls along with Nishad said that they did not notice her missing and thought she might have gone home.

Officers said that the incident was suspicious as a teenager was far away from her house and her friends claimed that they did not notice her missing. “We will question the girl’s friends again and scan the CCTVs of the locality to find out the exact sequence of events,” said the police.

The police have registered an Accidental Death Report (ADR) but are waiting for the post-mortem report to find the exact cause of her death.