The Madhya Pradesh Police have arrested a man for allegedly raping and killing an infant who was sleeping outside the Rajwada fort with her parents, who sell balloons, in Indore on Friday, ANI reported. The police used CCTV camera footage to track down the suspect who was seen carrying her to the basement of a commercial building in the vicinity.
Police identified the accused as 21-year-old Sunil Bheel, the girl’s uncle. Indore Deputy Inspector General HC Mishra said the accused had an argument with the child’s mother before he committed the crime. The girl’s family did not identify the suspect during the investigation, Mishra said.
Authorities are yet to confirm the child’s exact age. While some reports said she was four months old, others claimed she was either six months old or ten months old. “The body of the infant was recovered from the basement of a commercial building,” PTI quoted Mishra as saying. “The accused had kidnapped her early morning when she was asleep with her parents outside the Rajwada Fort.”
Police suspect the accused threw the child down. The state police suspended sub-inspector Trolik Singh Varkade of the Sarafa police station for dereliction in duty, The Times of India reported. “The sub-inspector failed to inform his seniors of the heinous crime in his area,” Mishra said.
The incident follows protests across the country after the police chargesheet in the rape-and-murder case of an eight-year-old child in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua revealed that she had been drugged, gang-raped, starved and murdered in January.
The government has drawn criticism for doing little to prevent crimes against women and children in the country. Several rape cases have been reported across the country in the last few months.
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