4-year-old sleeping on Mumbai footpath raped, murdered
Ahmed Ali | TNN | Feb 8, 2019, 03:53 IST
Illustration for representational purposeMUMBAI: In a shocking incident, a four-year-old girl sleeping on a pavement with her family was kidnapped, raped and strangled to death on Thursday.
Her body was dumped barely 100 metres from where she was picked up on Lady Jamshedji road in Mahim. The Mahim police have registered an offence of kidnapping and murder, and under sections of the Protection Of Children From Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, 2012.
They are studying CCTV footage of nearby buildings in an attempt to spot the culprit. The police said the family —parents and three children, including the girl — comes to the city regularly from rural Maharashtra and sells flowers, toys, balloons and other knick-knacks.
They usually sleep on the footpath near a convent school on Lady Jamshedji road. Early on Thursday morning, the girl’s mother realised that her daughter is missing and approached the Mahim police to lodge a missing person complaint. Sources said the cops were reluctant and tried to send the mother away, saying the girl may have wandered off and would return on her own. After much persuasion, they relented and started looking for the small girl.
“On Thursday, around 9.45am, somebody informed that a girl’s naked body had been found behind a furniture showroom on Lady Jamshedji Marg at Mahim,” said a senior police officer.
Initial investigation shows the girl was strangulated after being sexually assaulted. Her body was sent for a post-mortem at Sion hospital, where a team from the forensic science laboratory collected details. The crime branch is also conducting a probe. Besides CCTV footage, sniffer dogs were brought in to try and track the scene of crime.
The sources criticised the initial attitude of Mahim police and pointed out that the home ministry has made it clear that any complaint of missing children should be turned into an FIR and investigation started immediately. There has to be an initial presumption of either abduction or trafficking, unless investigation proves otherwise. The sources said it is possible that if the police had started investigating immediately, the girl’s life might have been saved.
Her body was dumped barely 100 metres from where she was picked up on Lady Jamshedji road in Mahim. The Mahim police have registered an offence of kidnapping and murder, and under sections of the Protection Of Children From Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, 2012.
They are studying CCTV footage of nearby buildings in an attempt to spot the culprit. The police said the family —parents and three children, including the girl — comes to the city regularly from rural Maharashtra and sells flowers, toys, balloons and other knick-knacks.
They usually sleep on the footpath near a convent school on Lady Jamshedji road. Early on Thursday morning, the girl’s mother realised that her daughter is missing and approached the Mahim police to lodge a missing person complaint. Sources said the cops were reluctant and tried to send the mother away, saying the girl may have wandered off and would return on her own. After much persuasion, they relented and started looking for the small girl.
“On Thursday, around 9.45am, somebody informed that a girl’s naked body had been found behind a furniture showroom on Lady Jamshedji Marg at Mahim,” said a senior police officer.
Initial investigation shows the girl was strangulated after being sexually assaulted. Her body was sent for a post-mortem at Sion hospital, where a team from the forensic science laboratory collected details. The crime branch is also conducting a probe. Besides CCTV footage, sniffer dogs were brought in to try and track the scene of crime.
The sources criticised the initial attitude of Mahim police and pointed out that the home ministry has made it clear that any complaint of missing children should be turned into an FIR and investigation started immediately. There has to be an initial presumption of either abduction or trafficking, unless investigation proves otherwise. The sources said it is possible that if the police had started investigating immediately, the girl’s life might have been saved.
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