Six days after a 12-year-old girl went missing from a village in western Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr district, her body was found on Tuesday evening buried in a pit at the home of a villager. He was arrested this morning from Himachal Pradesh's Shimla.
The police said the accused is a 22-year-old man named Harendra. He reportedly works as a labourer in Delhi and was home on the evening the girl disappeared.
"On February 28, (the girl's) father had filed a missing complaint, alleging that a man named Harendra had kidnapped her. Yesterday, her body was recovered from accused's house and around 7:30 today, we arrested him from Himachal Pradesh," Bulandshahr police chief Santosh Kumar Singh was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
"During investigation, the accused confessed the girl had come to his house to drink water, and that's when he attempted to rape her. When she cried for help, he killed her and buried the body in his house premises," the police officer added.
The Bulandshahr Police said the girl was working in a field on the evening of February 25 with her family members when she felt thirsty and said she was going home for water.
The girl's body was found in a pit at a village in Bulandshahr
"She left for home to drink water. But when she did not return, her sisters called out for her, but there was no response. The family assumed she had gone home and went back to work in the fields. However, later they did not find her there and started searching for her," Mr Singh said.
"In the evening, when they came to the same spot, they found a man who was drunk but could not locate the girl. They kept on searching for her for two-three days before going to the police on February 28," the police chief said.
"When people started looking for the girl today along with the police, they found a spot inside a house where it seemed a pit had been dug. When this was excavated, they found the girl's body. We are carrying out further investigation. This house belongs to a father-son duo. The father is in our custody, while the son is on the run," he added.
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