13-year-old found dead in ditch with throat slit

GHAZIABAD: A 13-year-old girl was found dead with her throat slit in Mandola in Tronica City on Friday morning. The girl, a student of class VII, was a resident of Delhi’s Karawal Nagar and had gone missing from near her home on the evening of March 7. A missing person’s report was lodged at Karawal Nagar police station on the same night.
Police said prima facie it did not look like a case of sexual assault. The body was found lying face down in a roadside ditch in Mandola by the family members, who subsequently informed local police about it.

An uncle of the victim said, “The girl’s throat was found to be slashed with a sharp-edged weapon, but there were no other injury marks visible on the body. Even the gold earrings and nose ring were found to be intact.”

The girl’s father is a dairy owner and has two shops in Karawal Nagar. One shop is at the house itself, while another one is located on the main road 400 metres away from the home. Footage from two CCTV cameras installed in the neighbourhood show the girl going towards the main road from her home around 5.30pm on March 7. The two CCTV cameras cover the distance of 300 metres between the two shops. She was most probably kidnapped while she was just 100 metres away from the main road shop as no CCTV camera was installed at that stretch,” the uncle added.

He did not rule out personal animosity as a cause behind the murder. Police also suspect the role of close relatives in the murder. Ghaziabad police handed over the body to the family after postmortem.

CO (Loni) Durgesh Kumar said, “The investigation in the case is being done by Delhi police. We got the postmortem done here in Ghaziabad as the body was found in our area and the report is awaited.”

Kumar added that sample slides have been preserved and will be sent to a forensic lab to find out whether the victim was sexually assaulted or not. According to the postmortem report, the girl died due to slitting of her throat.