The police said the accused, identified as Aftab Poonawaala, was arrested after the family of the deceased woman lodged a case against him. The woman’s body has still not been recovered, they said. (Representational image) THREE days after an 18-year-old girl was found dead at her residence with injuries in her private parts and some of her clothes removed, Unnao police Sunday arrested a local youth for rape and murder. The postmortem concluded that she died of shock and haemorrhage.
Police said the arrested man, who is pursuing post-graduation and stays in a hostel, was known to the girl. “During our investigation, we went through the girl’s cellphone and came to know that she was in regular touch with a youth. We traced the youth. During questioning, he told us that the girl invited him to her residence Thursday morning. She told him she was alone in the house. The youth said that he reached her house after taking energy booster pills. He claims to have taken an overdose of the pills and raped her. After she started bleeding and fell unconscious, he ran away,” Additional SP (Unnao) Shashi Shekhar Singh told The Indian Express, adding that he later came to know that the girl died of excessive bleeding.
According to police, the location of the accused cellphone also corroborated his presence at the girl’s house at the time of her death. Both the accused and the girl are Dalits, police said. The girl was pursuing graduation.
On Thursday afternoon, the girl’s body was discovered when her brother and sister returned home from school. They found the main door of the house open.
The girls’ parents, father works in a government school and her mother at a community centre – were not at home at the time of the incident. Based on their complaint, police had initially booked two neighbours – a Dalit man and a woman. “We have given a clean chit to the two neighbours since we have not found their involvement in the case,” said the local SHO on Sunday.