A security guard strangled a six-year-old girl to death and later had sex with her corpse in Haridwar on Friday, the police said. The accused, Sonu, who was watching over a poultry farm, had seen the girl playing with her friends near a slum where she used to live. He lured her into a nearby forest where he attempted to rape her. However, when she resisted, he strangled her to death and had sex with the corpse.
Sonu was said to be inebriated when he killed and raped the girl. "We have collected all the vital evidence needed to establish the crime," Janmejay Khanduri, the Senior Superintendent of Police Haridwar, told IANS.
The police confirmed that the children who were playing with the minor had last seen her with the security guard and there is also substantial evidence.
"The accused didn't agree to take the narco test, but he was most likely in a drunken state at the time of committing the crime. The evidence has been sent to the forensic laboratory," Khanduri added.
Shockingly, the incident occurred barely 600 metres away from the place where the girl's parents were working as labourers. The girl's parents had an argument with the security guard some days ago and they are now suspecting the involvement of another man in the heinous crime.
"Three days ago, the guard and another man got into a fight with us. We did not go to the fields for three days after that, but now they have committed this heinous crime. I don't know why no action is being taken against the co-accused," the girl's relative said.
The accused has been now sent to 14 days of police custody after the girl's body was recovered on Sunday and he confessed to the crime.
Child rape cases surge in the country
Despite the nationwide outcry against the rape of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua region of J&K last year, there has been no decrease in such cases all over the country. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the number of child rape cases in 2016 was 19,765 as against 10,854 such cases in 2015.
The police records reveal that the cases of child rape are particularly high in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Odisha.
Despite the government passing an order allowing death penalty for child rapists, Nobel laureate and child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi has said that there is a need to fast track the cases of child rape.
