The gossip among pavement dwellers in Mahim helped the police solve the rape and murder of the four-year-old girl, whose body was found a short distance away from her house on Thursday morning.

The victim, who used to stay with her family on the pavement in Mahim, went missing in the early hours of Thursday. Later the same morning, her body was found in a semi-nude state between a compound wall and two parked cars near St. Michael’s Church in Mahim.

Police officials said after the body was identified, a team was formed. The team began picking up repeat offenders with a history of child sexual abuse, and all the men staying on the pavement in the area.

“It was while making inquiries with the pavement dwellers that we found out that one of them, Mehndi Hassan Sheikh (23), was infamous as a pervert in the area. Some of the people told us that he would openly get intimate with his wife, and when they objected, would tell them that what he did with his wife was his own business and nobody else’s. On suspicion, we picked him up for questioning,” Additional Commissioner of Police (Central region) Ravindra Shisve said.

Mr. Sheikh was grilled for hours regarding his movements since Wednesday night till the victim’s body was discovered, and the investigating team found a lot of discrepancies in his statement. He was questioned intensively till he allegedly confessed to having committed the crime.

“Inquiries till now have established that the accused had noticed the victim sleeping in a semi-nude state a few times before. On Thursday morning, he picked her up and took her to the spot where the body was found, where he forced himself on her and then strangled her with his bare hands. He then went back to the spot where he used to dwell with his wife and three children. When the body was found, he was among the people who gathered at the spot and expressed shock,” Mr. Shisve said.

Mr. Sheikh was arrested around 3 a.m. on Friday. He has been charged with sexual assault, rape and murder under the Indian Penal Code and various sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. “One of the sections invoked against him – sexual assault on a girl under 12 years of age – is punishable by the death penalty, according to a recent amendment to the IPC,” Mr. Shisve said.