An 8-year-old girl was allegedly gangraped and killed by four men inside a factory in India.
The police in the southern state of Karnataka launched an investigation and arrested the accused Wednesday. Details about the crime came to light after the four accused people – identified as Jayban (21), Mukesh Singh (20), Muneem Singh (20) and Manish Tirki (33) – were taken into custody.
The police sources said one of the accused worked in the factory for 11 months while the other two joined three months ago. Singh was a laborer who was visiting Tirki.
The four accused had gathered together to drink Sunday, and then hatched a plan to rape the girl, the Indian Express reported.
One of the accused kidnapped the girl Sunday afternoon while she was playing with her brother inside the factory premises, following which all four men took turns to rape her. When she resisted, Jayban allegedly strangled her to death. The accused then dumped the body of the victim in a drain, the police said, according to The Times of India.
When the girl's family members couldn't find her, they launched a search, which was joined by Jayban and Manish. The girl’s body was later found in the evening in the drain.
“We have registered a case under sections of Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act and sections 376 and 302 under IPC (Indian Penal Code)," city police commissioner N Shashi Kumar said.
“The factory owner had given it on a lease. There were 41 people, which included six children and 21 persons from other states, majorly from Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, working as labourers. On the day of the incident, 19 persons were working and we detained many of them for questioning. We managed to get some CCTV footage, call details record (CDR) analysis and information from witnesses related to the incident. When these four suspects were questioned, they confessed to the crime,” he added.
Despite strict laws, India has seen an increasing number of rape cases in the last few years. In many of the cases, the accused are known to the victims.
Indians have protested a series of gang-rape and murders of young women Photo: AFP / Punit PARANJPE
