The man arrested in the murder case of a minor girl in Odisha, had raped the 5-year-old after strangling her to death, the Special Investigating Team (SIT) chief Arun Bothra said Tuesday.
Addressing a press conference, Mr Bothra said: "The accused youth was addicted to child pornography and strangled the girl to death as she resisted rape. However, he had sex with her body."
But the accused man's mother and sister, and also the child's parents rejected the Special Investigation Team's claim. While the accused's mother said that her son was "innocent", the child's mother said that he (accused) was a "good person".
Meanwhile, the accused's mother in a written complaint at the police station said: "The SIT arrested my innocent son. I have complained about this to the police. Arun Bothra told my son to admit to the crime and take Rs 5 lakh cash. My son has been subjected to physical and mental torture. He is being forced to admit charges."
While describing the minor girl's murder as most "brutal and gruesome" in his 22-years of service in the police, Mr Bothra, said, the accused was very clever and therefore deleted the search history from his mobile phone.
"However, while opening his handset, the murder and rape of a 3-year-old girl popped up. He was watching minor girl's rape and murder cases on the internet in order to find ways to escape it," he said.
"I had heard of cases where accused tried to have intercourse with corpses. But this is for the first time in my career as a policeman I came face to face with such an instance of pervert sexual assault," he said.
The SIT chief said that the accused's younger sister happened to be a close friend of the victim who used to visit his home to eat berries (Jamun) from their backyard. On July 14 the victim had visited his house when others were not at home, Mr Bothra said.
"The accused had watched porn videos on his mobile phone throughout the night of July 13. Next day he was all alone at home as his sister and mother were out on work. He had lost his father some years ago. The accused has confessed to have committed the crime instantly and had no prior plan," Mr Bothra said.
The SIT chief said as evidence, the team has detected the youth's semen in the dress of the victim which was put in the sack before being dumped near a pond in the backyard of the girl's house. He later took the girl's leggings and threw it in the same pond.
The girl was killed on July 14 and her remains were found from the backyard of her house on July 23.
However, the incident came to light when the girl's parents attempted self-immolation before the Odisha Assembly. The state government subsequently ordered an SIT probe after opposition BJP and Congress raised the matter in the Assembly.
The accused, who was arrested on Monday, was taken on police custody till December 24 for further interrogation, sources told news agency Press Trust of India.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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