(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)

NOIDA: An 8-year-old girl was allegedly raped and smothered to death by her 19-year-old cousin in Noida’s Salarpur on Saturday night. The accused choked the girl with a blanket inside a vacant shanty a few metres from where she lived with her parents.Police said the girl had seen her cousin steal some scrap from her father’s storehouse and threatened to reveal it to everybody. The accused allegedly offered her Rs 100 and took her to a nearby tenement, where he allegedly raped and murdered her when she tried to raise an alarm.The girl’s parents said they had last seen her outside their shanty around 7pm on Saturday. When she did not return home, they started looking for her. After around half an hour, the girl’s body was found in the vacant shanty around 100 metres from her home.“My elder brother had seen her going outside their shanty in the evening. A few minutes later, she was nowhere to be seen. We started searching for her in the neighbourhood. After around 30 minutes, her mother found her partially-clothed body inside the shanty. It was covered with the blanket with which she was probably killed,” a relative said. The girl’s cousin had even helped neighbours carry her to the hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival. He was caught by the villagers when he returned to collect his phone at the shanty.“One of us had seen a phone lying near the body. We did not remove it thinking it was evidence. A little later, the accused went inside and picked up the phone, saying it was his. This raised our suspicion and we handed him over to the cops,” the relative said. “After sustained questioning, he broke down and admitted that he had raped the girl and smothered her to death with a blanket,” he added.The girl’s father, a scrap dealer in the area, said the accused youth had stolen about 20kg of material from near his hutment and sold it for Rs 300.“He told the cops that my daughter had seen him steal the scrap and threatened to reveal it to everyone. He offered her Rs 100 and took her to a nearby shanty. He raped her there. When my daughter tried to raise an alarm, he killed her with a blanket,” the father sobbed. Though the alleged rape and murder was discovered around 7pm on Saturday, an autopsy could be done only after 24 hours. Police waited for doctors, who were busy attending to Covid-19 patients.Dharmendra Sharma, the Sector 49 station officer, said, “A panel was formed to conduct the autopsy but the doctors were busy with emergency cases at the district hospital. A few doctors were also stuck at the quarantine facility set up in Sector 39.” The girl’s cousin was arrested formurder and rape.