Agartala: A 18-year-old youth, arrested for the alleged rape and murder of a four-and-half-year-old girl in Tripura's Khowai district, has confessed to the crime and helped in reconstructing the crime scene, the police claimed on Friday.
Police arrested the accused Aman Nayek on Wednesday night from a remote village in the district.
The child had gone missing from the home of a neighbour in West Kunjaban village under Kalyanpur police station on July 8.
During the investigation, police recovered the decomposed body of the child from a jungle in the village on July 12. Thereafter, based on the inputs of the villagers, police detained Nayek, a neighbour of the victim, along with several others from the village.
According to the police, during interrogation, Nayek admitted that he had kidnapped the child and raped her in a rubber plantation before killing her.
Following Nayek's admission, police reconstructed the crime scene on Thursday.
A police source claimed that all the items Nayek used for the rape and murder have also been recovered from the spot.
Nayek allegedly took advantage of the loneliness of the child and carried her to a nearby forest where he raped her. In the course of the crime, the child fell unconscious. Finding no other way, Nayek strangulated her to death and dumped the body in a ditch inside the rubber estate, the source said.
“Aman returned home and also took part in the search for the missing child along with others. However, the villagers noticed some unusual behaviour on his part for the last few days and reported it to the police. After a preliminary investigation, we detained him on Wednesday night and during interrogation he broke down and admitted the crime,” the source claimed.
Police maintained they would seek a custodial trial of the accused and a charge sheet would be submitted at the earliest.
The court has asked the police to submit the case diary to decide on Nayek's police custody.
Meanwhile, various child rights bodies and villagers have demanded that Nayek be given capital punishment. (UNI)
