Mumbai:
When a stranger was seen offering a sweet to a little girl today, an angry crowd surrounded him, then handed him over to the local police.
In other places, that may seem like an over-reaction. Not in Kurla, a lower middle-class suburb in East Mumbai.
Suspicion, regret, anger - the atmosphere in Kurla has been highly-charged since February, when a little girl was found raped and killed. The rapes and murders of two other girls, both under 10, followed - the last as recently as Saturday. All three murders were committed in Nehru Nagar.
What has Kurla simmering is not just the uncertainty that this won't happen again - but the fact that the police seems to have made no real progress in its hunt for the killer.
Two thousand people in the area have been questioned in what's being described as the largest manhunt in Mumbai in the city's recent history. DNA samples of 70 people were collected in March - they are still being tested. Frustrated with the police pace, residents now organize night patrols. Parents wait outside schools while their children attend classes. "Many parents have withdrawn their children from tuition classes. And when they do send them they make sure they are escorted," says Sunita Kadam, a teacher.
Twenty seven police teams search Kurla everyday. One man has been detained by them - he resembles a sketch of the alleged killer, they say. But the police is no longer trusted, and not just because it has failed to deliver results.
The second victim's body was found on the roof of a Nehru Nagar building that houses policemen and their families. Those sampled for DNA included a policeman's relative, say sources. Policemen and their wives have also been questioned.