6yrold raped, murdered in Ludhiana; suspect arrested
The girl was last seen with suspect, a worker at a local fast food joint
LUDHIANA: A six-year-old girl was raped and strangulated to death in the Basti Jodhewal area of Ludhiana city on Wednesday morning.
Police have arrested a suspect, Bablu Pandit (40), who works at a local food joint, for committing the crime. The body of the girl, who went missing on Tuesday evening, was recovered in the bush in a vacant plot near her house at Sanyas Colony, Noorwala Road, at around 7am. There were scratch marks on her neck and injuries on her face.
Basti Jodhewal station house officer (SHO) Mohammad Jamil said soon after she went missing, the family started a search for her and lodged a missing complaint at the police station around midnight.
The body was sent to the civil hospital for post-mortem. The SHO said the initial autopsy report has confirmed rape before murder.
A case under Section 302 (murder) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered against Bablu on the basis of the complaint by the victim’s father who works as a tailor in a factory.
Jamil said Pandit was initially rounded up on the basis of suspicion as the neighbours confirmed that the victim was last seen with him.
The victim’s mother, a housewife, said Pandit lured her
daughter out of their house by offering her peanuts on Tuesday evening. “That time I stopped my daughter. Later, when she
was playing outside the house, Pandit offered her a samosa and even got her chips from a nearby shop. She went missing after that,” she said.
The victim has sisters aged three and one-and-a-half years.
Sonia, the owner of Hari Lal Chat Bhandar where Pandit works, said when the victim’s family and local residents were searching for her they suspected Pandit of having committed the crime.
“We found Pandit sleeping in our shop and he was under the influence of alcohol. We locked him inside and handed him over to the police in the morning,” the food joint owner said.