Bhopal: The body of an eight-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped, was found Sunday near a drain here, police said. Preliminary investigations revealed she was murdered by strangulation after being raped, an officer said.
Six police officials have been suspended for dereliction of duty and a reward of Rs 20,000 has been declared for providing information to nab the accused, officials said.
The girl had ventured out of her house in Kamla Nagar area around 8.00pm Saturday to buy something. When she did not return, her family members approached the police that night, an officer said.
Inspector General (Bhopal zone) Yogesh Deshmukh told reporters that the police searched for the girl in the night and her body was found near a drain in the same area around 5.00am, Sunday.
According to an initial post-mortem report, the girl ‘died of strangulation after rape’, Additional Superintendent of Police Akhil Patel told this agency. “We are waiting for a detailed report. We have identified an accused and a police team has launched a search for him,” he added.
Kamla Nagar police station in-charge Alok Shrivastava said the accused, Vishnu Mohare, in his mid-twenties, lived close to the girl’s home. Six relatives of Mohare have been detained and interrogation is on, the police officer said.
A constable was suspended after the girl’s family alleged that the police did not act on their complaint after she went missing, Shrivastava said.
The girl’s uncle said she went out to purchase gutkha, but never returned. “We went to the police station, but they did not respond and even said that she must have gone away with someone,” said the uncle. He also said that they also contacted a local corporator, who alerted the police. “The police personnel reached our locality late in the night, but they kept sitting there instead of looking for her,” he said.
Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bala Bachchan told reporters Sunday six that police personnel, including an assistant sub-inspector, had been suspended for dereliction of duty.
“Police have identified the absconding accused and collected all the evidence. As many as 20 police teams are looking out for the accused whose location has been traced,” Bachchan said.
Former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, newly-elected Bhopal BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur, state ministers PC Sharma and Arif Aqueel visited the residence of the victim.
Chief Minister Kamal Nath expressed grief and directed officials to take strict action against the accused, and take steps to prevent such incidents in the future.
PTI