11-Year Old Girl Murdered – Accused Held – Waiting For Post-mortem Report to Determine the Motive
On 9th February 2023, the worried parents filed a missing report of their 11-year-old girl at the Nagloi Police Station. The family resides in Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharth Nagar District. According to the parents, their daughter left for school in Delhi’s Nagloi area. Every morning, her brother would accompany her to school but on 9th February she took the bus. Daily, she returned home by 11:00 pm but on that day she did not come home. The parents and her four brothers started the search but were unable to find her. Late in the evening, they decided to file a complaint at the Nangloi Police Station.
Case was filed on February 10th under Section 363
The girl’s parents had doubts that she was kidnapped. Based on this assumption, a case was registered under IPC [Indian Penal Code] Section 363 on 10th February against unknown persons. According to Delhi criminal lawyer, ‘Section 363 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) deals with the offense of kidnapping. The offense of kidnapping is a serious crime as it involves the deprivation of a person’s liberty and can cause great distress to the victim and their family. The punishment for kidnapping can be up to seven years of imprisonment and a fine.’
Following the section 363 complaint, the police started investigating the case. Several teams were allocated to search for the missing girl. The police knew that the girl was in her school uniform and had gone to school but did she reach school was a question. So, they asked around the school to identify where the missing girl was last seen or heard. It could help them determine where to focus their search efforts.
The parents had given the missing girl’s photo to the police. As the girl was just 1 year old, there was no need to check her digital movements but during technical surveillance, they identified that the missing girl’s mother had got a missing call from some unidentified number on the same day her daughter went missing. The details of that unidentified number were examined. The police found that the location was around the Nangloi area, where her school was located. The phone number was zeroed because the mobile had been turned off since February 9th, when the minor girl disappeared.
Cell phone movements were monitored
The police started to monitor the cell phone’s movements because it had been switched on and off but from different locations. Today, mobile phones are GPS-enabled, so the police gained access to the location data and tracked the movement.
According to the cellular tower details, the first time it was switched on was in Ludhiana, Punjab, and the second time it was activated in Madhya Pradesh. The police suspected that the missing girl was taken to these locations. Police teams were conveyed there but in vain. They did not find the alleged kidnapper or the girl. Raids were also conducted in several places around Delhi-NCR by the police team but without any results.
Rohit confessed how he murdered
Fortunately, on 21st February [Tuesday] the police were successful in catching the unknown mobile phone owner in the Peeragarhi area. According to Delhi criminal lawyer, the offense of kidnapping is cognizable, meaning that the police can arrest the accused without a warrant [The complaint was filed under Section 363].
The police suspected that the man who during interrogation was recognized as Rohit [Vinod-alias name] must have murdered the Class-6 girl student, after assaulting her sexually. The 21-year-old Rohit confessed to strangling the minor but the sexual-assault angle is still to be confirmed. The police are waiting for the autopsy report to ascertain the real cause and motive of the murder. They are cross-examining Rohit to identify the real reason behind killing an 11-year-old girl.
According to the deputy police commissioner, Harendra Kumar Singh – Rohit met the minor girl for the first time on 9th February in a park. The park was near her school. Actually, she had bunked or skipped school that day. Rohit told her that he also had skipped school. He was a student at some school nearby. He talked nicely and befriended her. A security guard at the park saw her and asked why she was not in school or at the park. The guard strictly told her to go to school or he will send the photo he clicked to her family and school administrator.
Rohit enticed and influenced her to walk near the railway tracks, after this incident with the security guard. He took her to a godown, which was at a walking distance [5 km] from the park he met her.
Rohit took the police to this abandoned godown situated in Ghevra. The young girl’s body was found. It was in a highly decomposed condition. The forensic team had to collect the body parts in four boxes, which were sent for autopsy at the nearby government hospital’s mortuary.
The family recognized the body of their daughter. A water bottle and schoolbag were also found near her body dumped inside the godown.
Local allegations on the police department
On 21st February [Wednesday], the girl’s body was cremated at Nagloi’s cremation ground by her family amidst tight police security. There have been local allegations that police are trying to hush up this murder case, so the girl’s body was urgently cremated.
The girl’s family was driven to Nagloi’s cremation ground in the police van. No other relatives or neighbours were allowed to enter the cremation rituals. The locals suspect that the man arrested [Rohit alias Vinod] is a member of some human trafficking gang.
DCP Singh refused the accusations of human trafficking and even Rohit has no prior arrest or criminal record. The girl’s body was cremated with her family’s consent. Delhi officials are still questioning Rohit because there is still no confession about the killing’s exact motive. They were successful in catching the murderer due to the missed call on the victim’s mother’s mobile phone.
The people and the police department are still waiting for the post-mortem report. However, the murderer is in police remand and being cross-examined for a motive. The murderer and the victim 11-year old minor girl were not related to one another in any way, so why did the killing take place is still a huge question.