8-year-old visually impaired girl raped, murdered in MP

BHOPAL: A visually impaired eightyear-old girl was allegedly raped and murdered at a village in Madhya Pradesh’s Dindori district, police said on Sunday.

Police arrested a 22-year-old man of the village and booked him for the rape and murder of the child. “The child used to call him Mama (maternal uncle) even though they were not related,” said inspector Anil Patel who is investigating the case.

He allegedly waylaid the child on Friday evening when she was going to a friend’s house in the neighbourhood to sleep.

“After she did not return on Saturday, her parents searched for her frantically. After a while, they found her body, with the head smashed,” said Patel.

“The post-mortem report suggested she was raped before she was murdered,” Patel added.

Police suspect the accused murdered the girl by bashing her head with a stone because he feared that she would tell her parents about the sexual assault.

Reacting to reports of the child’s rape and murder, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Congress MP from Guna, tweeted that this was the height of depravity. He said in the same tweet that such heinous crimes were taking place routinely in Madhya Pradesh, but the state government was a mute spectator.

TWO MEN BOOKED FOR RAPING 28-YR-OLD

BHOPAL/SEHORE: Madhya Pradesh police registered a case of rape against two men in Sehore district and arrested one of them on Sunday. A 28-year-old woman accused them of rape in her complaint lodged with the police on Saturday.

The woman, who works with a real estate firm, alleged that she was first raped by Rajaram Malviya and then by his friend Mukesh Thakur, said police. Malviya has been arrested. He claimed to be a member of the BJP state unit’s Scheduled Caste wing, said the police. A hunt has been launched for Thakur, the police added.

According to the complainant, Thakur introduced himself to her as Dewas MP Manohar Untwal’s representative. Untwal denied that Thakur was his representative. “A case has been registered against the accused under sections related to rape and criminal intimidation,” said inspector BD Beera of Astha police station.