Mumbai: A 20-year-old man stabbed a 12-year-old girl to death and tried to die by suicide at Kalyan in Maharashtra last evening, police have said.
Aditya Kamble was upset after the girl turned down his romantic proposal and attacked her in front of her mother on the stairs of the building she lived in.
Neighbours said the girl was returning from coaching classes with her mother when Aditya met them on the stairs. He pushed the mother and stabbed the girl at least eight times. The mother, shocked by the sudden attack, screamed for help as the stabbing continued.
Visuals showed blood on the stairs and over vegetables the mother-daughter duo had bought on their way back.
As the girl collapsed, Aditya drank phenyl in a suicide bid. He has been admitted to a hospital.
Hearing the screams of the girl's mother, neighbours rushed the 12-year-old to a hospital, where she died during treatment.
Police have recovered the knife used in the crime. Aditya faces charges of murder and suicide attempt, police have said.
Manoranjan Das, a relative of the victim, has demanded capital punishment for the accused. "We want him hanged, nothing less will do. She did not even know what love was. He should be hanged so that anything like this does not happen again," he said.