Police said the accused, who is in his late 30s, was detained for questioning on Tuesday, a day after the girl had gone missing. He has confessed to killing the girl and dumping her body on the rooftop of a godown, two km from the girl’s house, said police, adding the accused is a distant relative of the girl and has a personal grudge against her father.
“The girl, a student of Class V, had gone missing on January 29 (Monday) and her family reported to the police the same day. A missing diary was filed. We examined the CCTV footage from the area and saw the girl being taken away by a person on a motorbike. With the help of residents of the area, we identified the person riding the motorbike. The next day, we detained him. During questioning, we found that the suspect was the girl’s relative. So, we needed strong evidence,” said Superintendent of Police (Malda) Pradeep Kumar Yadav.
“Initially, the accused said that he had picked her near her house on Monday and later dropped her back. He kept misguiding the police and took names that were found to be fake. We found discrepancies in his statement. After prolonged questioning, he confessed to killing the girl on Wednesday evening and told where her body was dumped,” said the SP.
Neither denying nor confirming whether the girl was sexually assaulted, the SP said the body has been sent for postmortem.
The incident caused unrest in the area. A mob vandalised the house of the accused and set it on fire on Thursday. The mob also blocked National Highway-34 and local BJP leaders gheraoed the local police station alleging police inaction.
“The police intervened, and the situation has been brought under control. We haven’t received any complaint over the vandalism yet,” said a senior police officer.
Meanwhile, the incident took a political colour with the Opposition BJP alleging that the police were “too busy in giving security” to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who was in the district on Wednesday.
“Police had no time to search or find the girl as they were busy in CM’s visit… Now, it’s the wait in the hospital to take the body of the child… Such is the tragic state of affairs in West Bengal,” said BJP legislator Sreerupa Mitra.
The police denied the BJP MLA’s charge. “Anyone can say anything. A prompt action was taken immediately. The girl was killed within an hour of kidnapping. It is an unfortunate incident, but the police action was prompt and the accused was arrested quickly,” said the police.