India, July 13 -- An 18-year-old labourer and a co-worker were arrested and sent to the jail on Sunday after being accused of luring a seven-year-old girl into an under-construction mall in Ghaziabad's Raj Nagar Extension area, brutally raping and murdering her, and dumping her body three floors down in the basement of a mall, police said. The victim was playing near the construction site with her brothers on Friday evening when she went missing around 7.30 pm. Her family searched the area but could not find her. Her body was discovered in the mall basement and police were informed, after which a team rushed to the scene. Also Read - Vinod Nagar: Constable shoots wife dead on her birthday, flees According to police, the two accused - Vinay Kumar (18), and Sahibuddin (22), both from Bihar - had been working at the mall for about two-and-a-half months. Police said Vinay had been friendly with the children, often giving them chips and toffees, and had paid particular attention to the girl in the weeks before the attack. CCTV footage helped reconstruct the final hours. "When we scanned CCTV footage, we found that the two accused entered the mall with the girl through the main gate around 7.40 pm. A couple of hours later, they came out - without her," said Dhawal Jaiswal, DCP (City and Trans-Hindon). Police said the sequence of events was calculated and brutal. After luring the girl inside on the pretext of buying snacks and a soft drink, the men allegedly took her to the third floor, beat her, raped her and then killed her. Also Read - Four minors feared drowned in Yamuna "Vinay picked up an iron rod and struck her head repeatedly. Once they were certain she was dead, both men carried her to a nearby staircase and dropped her body into the basement through a shaft," a senior officer said. An autopsy found multiple injury marks on the body with fractures on her leg. Police said both accused were intoxicated at the time of the crime and had routinely drunk together since arriving from Bihar. The under-construction mall had no guard at the entrance, which police said allowed the accused to enter unnoticed. Acting on a complaint by the girl's father, an FIR was registered at Nandgram Police Station under relevant sections of the BNS, including gang rape, kidnapping, murder and causing death, and provisions of the POCSO Act. Both accused were produced in court on Sunday and remanded to judicial custody.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.