Body of 2-year-old girl found in laptop bag hanging from neighbour's door in Greater Noida village

NOIDA: The body of a two-year-old girl missing for the past two days was found in a laptop bag hanging from the door of a neighbour's room in a Greater Noida village.
Police said the absconding neighbour - who lives in the opposite house - had hung the bag along with other clothes behind the main door of his room. The cops said they were trying to find out if the girl was raped and had sent the body for an autopsy. The reports were awaited till late on Sunday evening.
Four teams have been formed to arrest the accused, who is originally from Balia. A team has been sent to his hometown as well.
The girl's father, a daily-wage labourer, said his daughter had been missing since 2pm on Friday. "I was out for work and my wife had gone to the neighbourhood store to buy groceries. Our daughter tried to match steps with her, but could not. Her mother returned home within minutes, but she was nowhere to be found," he added.
Ram Badan Singh, deputy commissioner of police (central Noida), said the family looked for the girl in the neighbourhood and approached the cops around 10pm that day, eight hours after she had gone missing.
"They lodged a missing person's complaint at Surajpur police station. A police team was formed and a search for the little girl was initiated," the senior officer told TOI.
The girl's parents sensed something amiss when the accused, who was living with his family in the opposite house on the ground floor of a building, left without informing anyone.
They approached the police around 10am on Sunday when a foul smell started coming out of the neighbour's room.
"We broke open the lock and started searching the house. Then we found the laptop bag hanging from the rear side of the door. When we opened it, we were shocked to see the body. It had started to decompose in this heat. The girl's family members identified her," Singh said.
The police believe the two-year-old was strangled with a piece of cloth. "There are no external injuries. Let the autopsy report come," the deputy commissioner of police said.
Sumit Shukla, ACP-3, said CCTV footage was being examined to get leads on the accused. "The accused is absconding with his family. Four teams have been formed to trace him. One team has been sent to his hometown in Ballia," he added.
An FIR for murder was registered against the accused at Surajpur police station after the body was found.