GHAZIABAD: A four-year-old girl was allegedly raped and bludgeoned to death with a stone by a neighbour who lured her away with the promise of a chocolate. Her body was found in bushes about 500 metres from her home.The accused, a 24-year-old factory labourer who lives in the same locality, has been detained.Police said they received a Dial 112 call about a child found critically injured and rushed to the spot. With deep, gushing wounds to the head, the girl was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival. “The body was sent for an autopsy, and the accused was detained within a few hours. He is being questioned,” DCP (City) Dhawal Jaiswal said.
The girl’s father, also a daily wager, lived with his three children — two sons aged 12 and 10, apart from the four-year-old girl. According to him, the child was playing outside the house around 6pm when the accused took her away, saying he would buy her chocolate.“When I returned from work around 7pm, my daughter was missing. Some children told me the neighbour (the accused) had taken her to get chocolate. I went to his house, but he was not there. I checked nearby shops, but no one could tell me anything about him,” the father said.He said relatives and neighbours then joined the search. Around 8.45pm, they found the accused in an isolated farm in the village. “When I asked where my daughter was, he told me to go ahead and I would find her,” the father said.A short distance away, the family found the child grievously injured and oozing blood from the head. Police were called, but the accused had fled home by then.According to police, the girl’s mother has not lived with the family since 2022, when the child was six months old. The father said while he went out to work, his eldest son often looked after the younger children and even cooked for them.A senior officer said five police teams were formed immediately, and the accused was arrested near his house within hours. He lives with his father, brother and sister-in-law, police said.Nandgram SHO Umesh Kumar said the autopsy found 11 injury marks on the child’s body, including three brick or stone blows to the head, signs of strangulation and smothering, bite marks, and injuries to her private parts. “During questioning, he confessed to the crime and said he killed the girl so that no one would know about the crime,” the SHO said.An FIR was registered under BNS sections 103 (murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offenders). Police said provisions of the Pocso Act and the SC/ST Act would also be added.Villagers later protested outside Nandgram police station, demanding the harshest action against the accused.
