Aligarh: Police Arrest Juvenile for Rape and Murder of Minor Dalit Girl
New Delhi: The Aligarh police on Wednesday arrested a 17-year-old juvenile for the murder of a minor Dalit girl in a village in the Akrabad area of the district.
According to The Hindu, the senior superintendent of police (Aligarh) Muniraj G. said the juvenile was from the neighbouring village and that he had confessed to the crime. The police have booked him for murder and rape, though the postmortem report was apparently inconclusive on the issue of sexual assault.
Police, however, say that the 17-year-old tried to assault the girl, who fought back. They said that the accused was watering a wheat crop around noon on February 28 when the victim came to the field to collect fodder.
“He was watching a porn film on his mobile. He tried to sexually assault the girl and when she resisted, he strangulated her with her chunni (stole). He then dragged her body for a few metres to hide it in another field,” Muniraj said, according to The Hindu.
He threw the chunni in a canal and her slippers in another field. He led the police to the slipper, according to reports.
The Hindu reported that the accused knew the deceased as he used to go to her village to fetch milk. When she went to drink water from the canal near the tree where he was sitting, he overpowered her and tried to sexually assault her. When she began resisting, the juvenile first smothered her face and then strangulated her, the newspaper said. He left the body near the field of a resident of her village so that he would be suspected.
The SSP said that the accused would be prosecuted under sections 302 and 376 of the IPC, and relevant sections of the POCSO Act 2012. “We have also added section 201 of the IPC and relevant sections of the SC/ST Act 1989. We will ensure the accused gets the strictest possible punishment.”
The death of the minor Dalit girl in Aligarh came just days after three minor Dalit girls were poisoned in Unnao. The two younger girls died, but the third survived. Police have arrested two men, including a minor, in the case. The 28-year-old man had decided to poison the eldest girl because she rejected his advances, the Unnao police said.
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