A 20-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping, raping, and murdering a 10-year-old girl by slitting her throat before throwing her body from the bathroom window of his house in Maharashtra's Thane, police said on Tuesday.
The crime occurred on the night of April 7, news agency PTI quoted police as saying.
The accused allegedly lured the victim, who resided in a nearby building, by offering her toys, took her to his house on the sixth floor of a residential building in Thane's Samrat Nagar where he raped her and then slit her throat with a sharp weapon.
After that, he took the girl's body to the bathroom of his house and pushed it from an open window there, PTI quoted the official. A police probe team checked every flat in the building and found a window of the bathroom in the man's house open from where he allegedly pushed the girl, the official said.
The incident was reported at 11.48 pm on Monday to the Thane Municipal Corporation's disaster management cell, its chief Yasin Tadvi said.
{{/usCountry}}The incident was reported at 11.48 pm on Monday to the Thane Municipal Corporation's disaster management cell, its chief Yasin Tadvi said.
{{/usCountry}}The police on Tuesday initially registered a case under sections 103 (murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act against the man, who resides in Thakurpada area of Mumbra, a police official said.
Autopsy confirms rape
Autopsy was conducted on the minor girl, which confirmed that she was raped and her throat was slit with a sharp weapon, the police official said.
Based on the autopsy report, the police added BNS sections 96 (procuration of a child), 137 (2) (kidnapping), 64 (rape), 64 (I) (raping woman incapable of giving consent), 65 (2) (rape on woman under 12 years of age) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender), he said.
According to Thane Municipal Corporation's disaster management cell's chief Yasin Tadvi, the girl, who was not a resident of the building, was found lying in a vertical duct running through the structure under unclear circumstances.
Some women heard a loud thud and alerted the police, the PTI report mentioned.
Emergency services, including personnel from the Mumbra police station, fire brigade teams, regional disaster management cell and a private ambulance reached the spot and launched a rescue operation.
Despite a challenging operation due to the narrow structure of the shaft, fire brigade officials retrieved the child who was then taken to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital in Kalwa, where doctors declared her brought dead, Tadvi said.