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Man rapes 2 minor sisters, strangles them to death
According to the police, the incident took place on Wednesday when the girls went missing at 1 pm and a police complaint was lodged
Pune: The Rajgurunagar police on Thursday arrested a 54-year-old cook on charges of killing two sisters – age 8 and 9 - in Rajgurunagar after he allegedly tried to sexually assault the elder sister inside the house the minors were staying.
According to the police, the incident took place on Wednesday when the girls went missing at 1 pm and a police complaint was lodged. After frantic search, their bodies were found in a half-filled water barrel at the first floor of the house on Thursday.
The brutal murder has sent shockwaves across the area with locals demanding strict punishment for the accused.
According to the police officials, the accused, identified as Ajay Kumar Das from West Bengal, tried to allegedly sexually assault the younger sibling and strangled her to death when she resisted to the physical abuse.
As the act was seen by the older sister, he sexually targeted her as well and eventually strangled her to death before dumping the bodies in the water-filled barrel in the house. The heinous act took place when the parents of the minors were not present at the house.
According to the police, the accused fled to Pune after the crime and hid in a lodge from where he was arrested.
“We received the alert that Das was planning to flee via train on Thursday. Our team nabbed him from a hotel in Pune city. He has been booked for rape and murder of the two minor girls,” the official said, adding that the accused was the neighbour of the minors’ family.
The sisters’ father is a sweeper at a local panchayat school in Rajgurunagar and mother is a helper doing odd jobs, a police official said.
According to the FIR, the girls went missing while playing at their house on Wednesday afternoon and their bodies were found inside a water barrel in a room occupied by migrant workers in a slum area.
Pune superintendent of police (rural) Pankaj Deshmukh said that the accused worked as cook at a nearby restaurant.
“He has been arrested under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Section 137 and will be produced before the court. The case was swiftly detected by our team,” said Deshmukh.
Meanwhile, the grieving family and relatives staged a sit-in dharna outside the police station demanding strictest punishment to the culprit and refused to accept the bodies of the two minors.
The double murder incident prompted a series of tweets from MLA Rohit Pawar, and Members of Parliament Supriya Sule and Amol Kolhe who alleged about callous approach towards solving serious crime incidents by the police in the state.
