Ghaziabad: Man gets life in jail for rape, murder of five-year-old girl he adopted

A police complaint in this connection was given by girl’s aunt on March 12 to the Tila Morh police station and she stated that the girl was adopted by Bhati and wife, following her father’s death

A Ghaziabad court on Thursday awarded life imprisonment to a 28-year-old man for rape and murder of a five-year-old girl he had adopted, while his 24-year-old accomplice was awarded four years’ imprisonment for destruction of evidence in a case that was registered in March this year.

The court said the convict after the sexual assault murdered the girl and disposed of the body with his friend in order to hide the crime. (Representative Image)

The convict was identified as Ajay Bhati while his accomplice was identified as Neeraj Kumar.

The court said the convict after the sexual assault murdered the girl and disposed of the body with his friend in order to hide the crime.

“The girl was strangulated and the body was thrown in a jungle area of the colony. The convict did so in order to satisfy his physical need. This is a serious crime against the girl. The convict was also a guardian of the girl. If such people stay in society, life of children would be difficult,” the court headed by special judge Tendra Pal (Pocso court) said in the order delivered on Thursday.

A police complaint in this connection was given by girl’s aunt on March 12 to the Tila Morh police station and she stated that the girl was adopted by Bhati and wife, following her father’s death. She went missing on the afternoon of March 11 and her body was discovered in the bushes near her home around 11.30am the next day.

Bhati, during trial, maintained that he was falsely charged -- that he already has two children, aged nine and six, and his wife adopted her cousin’s child after the cousin’s death.

The prosecution produced 10 witnesses and two of them told the court that they spotted the two men carrying a bag on a scooter around 3-3.30am on the intervening night of March 11/12.

“The two witnesses were well known to Bhati and they both were in the vegetable business. So, they were awake early morning and spotted Bhati and Neeraj going with the bag. They greeted Bhati and called out to him but the two did not stop. This was the major circumstantial evidence that implicated them -- the two could not explain where they were going so early in the morning,” said Utkarsh Vats, special public prosecutor (Pocso).

“The other evidence was the deletion of CCTV videos of a nearby shop. After the girl went missing, Bhati and Neeraj went to the shop on the pretext of checking the CCTV footage to locate the child. They allegedly tampered with the footage and later, a technician told the shop owner that the footage of that day was deleted ” Vats said.