New Delhi: The prime accused in the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in outer Delhi’s Bawana knew the minor’s family from earlier and had no prior criminal record, ThePrint has learnt. The five-year-old was allegedly raped, her throat slit and head bludgeoned with a brick, body dumped in a factory, in outer Delhi’s Bawana area.
Police suspect that the crime took place Monday evening.
Police sources said the 28-year-old accused, Totan Lohar alias Khudi, lured the girl, then allegedly raped her and killed her. “He slit her throat with a blade and hit her head with a brick,” a senior police officer told ThePrint, adding that police suspect it was Lohar who dumped her body in a factory around 7:30 pm Monday from where it was later recovered.
Lohar was nabbed from West Bengal Wednesday.
It is also learnt that the accused had known the victim’s family, who ran a tea stall, for as many as three years. “He would come to their tea stall daily,” said the officer quoted earlier, adding that Lohar works in a plastic factory and had no prior criminal record.
The matter first came to light Monday when the Delhi Police received a PCR call about the kidnapping of a minor girl. An FIR was then lodged, on the basis of statements of the girl’s parents, under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer North) Ravi Kumar Singh told the media, “The girl had gone missing at 5 pm. The parents tried to locate her but couldn’t and made the PCR call. Multiple teams were formed to locate the minor and CCTV footage from the area was screened. The girl was seen walking alongside the man (accused) in one footage.”
The accused was later found to be absconding, but a preliminary police investigation suggested that he may have fled to West Bengal via Poorva Express. It was after this that one police team was deployed at the New Delhi railway station and another was dispatched to Kolkata, waiting for the train which the police suspected the accused boarded in Delhi.
“The team identified the accused in the train and he was brought back to Delhi Wednesday. He has confessed to raping and killing the minor,” said DCP Ravi Kumar Singh. The accused has been booked under IPC sections for murder, destruction of evidence, rape and relevant sections of the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
It is also learnt that the police have recovered the blade and a brick allegedly used to commit the murder from the factory where the minor’s body was recovered.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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