Four-year-old girl found dead in river bears marks of sexual abuse, relative arrested
The Puthencruz police in Ernakulam on Thursday arrested a close relative of the four-year-old girl who was allegedly murdered by her mother on charges including rape.
The 36-year-old accused, one of the two brothers of the deceased child's father, was taken into custody after the post-mortem report suggested her body bore marks of 'chorionic' sexual abuse. He lived in a separate house on the same compound as the child's family.
Confesses to crime
While he was taken into custody on Wednesday morning, his arrest was recorded only on Thursday after he reportedly confessed to the crime following an interrogation by a team led by District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural) M. Hemalatha. He was produced before the Kolencherry Judicial First Class Magistrate Court and remanded.
The accused was booked for charges, including rape, under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act Sections 3 (penetrative sexual assault) and Section 5 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault). According to the police sources, the child was being sexually abused at least for the last one year. The post-mortem report also suggested that she was abused very recently, probably on the morning of the day she was allegedly murdered.
Mother in custody
Meanwhile, the Aluva Judicial First Class Magistrate gave the Chengamanad police five days' custody of the mother in the murder case. She will be further interrogated and taken around for the collection of evidence. Before being remanded in judicial custody, she told the police that she had killed her daughter.
The mother picked up the child from the anganwadi and went missing on Monday evening. Later in the day, the mother reached her house near Aluva alone, and said that the child had gone missing along the way.
CCTV footage
However, the Chengamanad police took her into custody after CCTV footage emerged of her going towards the Moozhikulam bridge along the Chalakudy river with the child but returning alone. The body of the child was eventually retrieved from the river in the area around 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday after nearly eight hours of search.
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