The Aligarh police said they could slap the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against two persons accused of brutally murdering an infant girl in the west Uttar Pradesh district. The incident had triggered outrage in the area with locals staging demonstrations demanding justice.
The police also ruled out rape, citing the autopsy on the body of the girl who was just two-and-a-half years old.
The infant had been murdered by “strangulation,” said Aligarh SSP Akash Kulhary.
The officer said the police was “trying to invoke the NSA” against the two accused who had been arrested. They were identified as Zahid and Aslam.
According to the police, the infant’s family had lodged a complaint on May 31 at the Tappal police station that their infant daughter had gone missing and had been kidnapped. Even as the family desperately tried to search for the child, her body had been recovered from near a waste dump.
The infant’s father had said that the body was found in a mutilated state, perhaps to “ensure that she could not be recognised.” He had also accused the police of delay and laxity in investigation.
Mr. Kulhary asserted the accused and the victim’s father shared personal animosity and that the main accused Zahid had threatened the father two days before his daughter had gone missing. The victim’s father owed some money to Zahid, the police claimed.
In remarks to a television channel, the victim’s mother demanded justice and asked, “What animosity did they have with the child?”