A 10-year-old girl was raped and killed during a wedding function in Kabirdham district of Chhattisgarh, following which a young man was arrested, police said on Thursday, 19 April.
Superintendent of Police Lal Umed Singh said accused Uttam Sahu, 25, admitted to the rape and subsequent murder of the girl by hitting her head with a stone in Bagharra village on Wednesday night. The girl was related to the bridegroom, who was Sahu's friend.
Police said Sahu is a resident of Rehauta village in Kunda police station area and went to the village as part of the marriage procession.
He had lured the girl away with a promise of a cold drink. As reported by The Times of India, he took her about 1.5 kilometres away to a dark, isolated place and raped her.
The report states that there were cemented bricks that had been kept on the spot, which the accused had allegedly picked up and beaten the girl with. This caused her death on the spot. He then returned to the wedding ceremony, without realising that he had bloodstains on his shirt.
According to the report, when the girl’s family started looking for her, someone pointed out that she was last seen with Sahu, who was then spotted with the bloodstains on his shirt. The police were informed and Sahu was detained.
Sahu had reportedly told the police that he had beaten up the girl and left her in a place close to where the wedding ceremony was taking place. The police later found her body, in a semi-nude state, dumped in a dry riverbed in the village on Thursday morning.
The incident comes at the time when the nation has been enraged with the tragic Kathua rape case, where an eight-year-old girl was held for a week inside a temple in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir, brutally gang-raped and then later murdered.
Incidents such as these, including the Unnao and Surat rape cases, have led the county to begin questioning the very safety of children in India.
(With inputs from IANS and The Times of India)
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