6-year-old girl’s body found in a pit in Haryana, police suspect rape

The body of a six-year-old girl, who went missing on Saturday, was found with her throat slit and blood on her private parts in a farmhouse in Balegarh village of Haryana’s Yamunanagar district on Sunday, police said on Monday, adding to the rising number of brutal sexual assaults on children in the country.

“The victim is the daughter of a migrant labourer from Jharkhand. She went missing on Saturday afternoon and her body was recovered from a pit on Sunday morning,” Yamunanagar’s superintendent of police Rajesh Kalia said while speaking to the Hindustan Times.

“In the preliminary investigations, it seems a case of murder after rape as her throat was slit with a sharp-edged weapon, and there was blood on her private parts,” Kalia added.

Police said several families of labourers live inside the farmhouse and the accused could be one of the labourers as nobody from outside can enter the area without permission.

“The police detained some suspects but they were released after interrogation. The investigations are on and we will arrest the accused soon,” the SP said.

The police have registered a case under the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, and murder against unknown person under the Indian Penal Code.

Government figures show that a child is sexually abused every 15 minutes in India. According to the National Crime Records Bureau report for 2016, there was a sharp spike in cases of rape against children with an increase of such incidents by over 82% as compared to 2015.