5-Year-Old Killed In Jharkhand, Face Crushed With Stone

A five-year-old girl was allegedly raped and then killed in Jharkhand's West Singhbhum district, a police officer said on Monday.

The suspect, a middle-aged man, has been taken into custody, he said.

According to Circle inspector (Sadar), Khurshid Alam, the girl was playing outside her home in Kheriyar village on Saturday when the accused, claiming that he would buy her biscuits from a nearby shop, took her to the bushes some distance away.

The child's face was crushed with a stone and her body left in the bush, he said.

The incident came to light when a villager, who went to relieve himself near the bushes, spotted the body on Monday and raised an alarm.

A police team recovered the body and sent it to a hospital for post-mortem, Alam said.

Locals, who had spotted the child with the middle-aged man on Saturday, informed the police about it, following which the suspect was taken into custody for interrogation, he stated.

Birua has been taken into custody for interrogation, the officer said.

Prima facie, it seems to be a case of rape and murder, he said, adding that more details would be available once the post-mortem report arrived.

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