India, Oct. 4 -- A rapist-murder who had escaped police custody on August 4 during a court hearing, was traced and arrested on Wednesday after he allegedly raped and murdered seven-year-old girl in Mangatpada, in Bhiwandi. He had initially been arrested in 2023 for a similar crime against a six-year-old girl.

According to the Bhiwandi Nizampura police, the accused, Salamatali Alam Ansari, 30, lured his young victim with food, and took her to his rented room where he raped her, murdered her, and hid her body in a gunny bag before fleeing. A victim, the second child of four, was from a family that had moved to Bhiwandi from Bihar over a year ago. Her parents worked as labourers in the nearby factories.

The police said that when the girl d...