Hyderabad, Oct 11 (PTI) A five-year-old girl, who went missing from a residential gated community here, was kidnapped and found murdered on Sunday allegedly by a security guard, who was dismissed from his job, police said.
The girl’s grandfather and father had received calls demanding Rs 20 lakh ransom to hand her over.
The security guard identified as Vikram worked at the gated community and was recently removed from his job.
“He is absconding and is suspected to be behind the kidnapping and murder,” a police official said, based on preliminary investigation.
Teams have been formed to apprehend him, the official said.
The body of the minor girl, studying in class two, was found in an open sump in the gated community’s clubhouse cellar in Kowkoor area at around 1.30 AM, police said.
The girl had gone to watch Bathukamma festival celebrations at the clubhouse on Saturday evening.
Her grandfather received a call from an unidentified person, who spoke in Hindi and informed that their child was with him and demanded ransom.
The police official said at around 7.45 pm, the girl’s grandfather received a phone call, and the caller demanded him to pay Rs 20 lakh and take her granddaughter. “The caller asked him to come to Trimulgherry (in Secunderabad). In the meantime, her father also got a call with the same demand,” the official said.
The family members along with the residents of the gated community searched for the girl, but she was not found, and they approached the police.
After a search operation, the police found the girl’s body from the cellar on Sunday, with her hands and legs tied.
The deceased girl’s family members demanded the accused should be punished.
“He (the accused) killed the child…He has to die,” the victim’s mother told a TV channel.
“She is a five-year-old…This (killing) is wrong. Whoever has done it…He should be compulsorily punished,” her father, who works as a research scientist at an agri company, said.
A case was registered at Bollarum police station.
In a purported audio clip of the call conversation with the victim’s family, which was broadcast by some TV channels, the caller is heard asking “Do you want the girl or not?”
He then asks them to transfer the amount in a bank account, promising to share the location, where they could go get the child. The family members request the caller to show the child through video call, but the caller “refuses”.
CCTV footage showed the girl leaving the clubhouse and a man following her.
The police and residents of the gated community traced the number from which the ransom calls were made to the girl’s family, and found out that it to be the cell number of one of the security guards.
The security guard revealed that Vikram had taken his phone and made the calls, a resident told media persons.
Police said they were also verifying the role of another security guard, if any. PTI VVK VVK ROH
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