After villagers spotted the suspect on CCTV, they tracked him to a riverside where they took matters into their own hands before police intervened. The state government has now ordered a watertight investigation.
Image Source: ANI
This past week, Nasrapur village in Maharashtra became the site of an unthinkable tragedy. A three-and-a-half-year-old girl, who had traveled from Pune to spend her summer vacation at her grandmother’s house, never made it home from an afternoon of play. Her death has not only devastated her family but has sparked a wave of anger that reached the doorsteps of the state government.
On a typical Saturday afternoon, the girl’s grandparents realised she was missing. By 3:00 pm, a frantic search began. When local efforts failed to locate her, the family turned to the Rajgadh police for help.
Advertisement
However, it was the village’s own residents who first uncovered the horrifying truth. By reviewing local CCTV footage, they saw a 65-year-old man leading the child toward a nearby cow shed.
Advertisement
The details of what happened inside that shed are harrowing. According to the Pune Rural Police, the elderly man lured the toddler away by promising to show her a young calf. Once inside the secluded building, he sexually assaulted her.
To cover his tracks, he allegedly used a heavy stone to strike the child, killing her, and then hid her body beneath a heap of cow dung.
While the police were arriving at the scene, the villagers had already taken action. They tracked the 65-year-old to a riverside where they began to beat him in a fit of rage. Officers intervened just in time to arrest the man, who later confessed to the crime during interrogation.
The crime has been met with the full force of the law. The Rajgadh police station registered a case involving multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including charges for murder and kidnapping.
Additionally, several sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act have been applied.
A Pune sessions court has since ordered that the accused remain in police custody until May 7 to allow for further investigation.
As the investigation deepened, a troubling history emerged regarding the suspect. Superintendent of Police Sandeep Singh Gill revealed that this was not the man’s first brush with the law. He has a documented history of similar behavior, with molestation cases filed against him under the POCSO Act as far back as 1998 and 2015.
Perhaps most frustrating for the local community is the fact that he was acquitted in a similar case in 2019. Despite his age, police describe a “pattern of behaviour” that suggests a long-standing danger to children.
Because the village of Nasrapur is sparsely populated, authorities are now looking closely at how he managed to snatch the child without being noticed by neighbours or family members during the busy daylight hours.
The grief of the family quickly turned into a public demand for justice. On Saturday, hundreds of protestors gathered in the Navale Bridge area. In a deeply emotional scene, the family placed the young girl’s body on the ground, refusing to move until they received a guarantee that the accused would face the harshest possible punishment.
Demonstrators moved to block the Mumbai-Bengaluru highway, a vital artery for transport in Maharashtra. The blockade caused miles of gridlock, with social media images showing thousands of vehicles stuck in a standstill.
The Pune traffic police were forced to issue an emergency advisory urging drivers to avoid the Wadgaon Bridge area and seek alternate routes.
Under heavy security, the child’s body was eventually moved to Pune’s Vaikunt crematorium. There her final rites were performed shortly after midnight.
The brutality of the case has reached the highest levels of the Maharashtra government. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis publicly condemned the act, stating that the state would push for capital punishment. He emphasised that the nature of the crime demands the ultimate penalty under the law.
Supporting this stance, Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar visited the grieving family to offer condolences. She promised that the case would be moved to a fast-track trial.
Meanwhile, Deputy CM Eknath Shinde has issued strict instructions to the Pune Rural police. He has ordered them to build a “watertight” case with concrete evidence to ensure there are no loopholes that could lead to another acquittal.
Advertisement
