india

Updated: Nov 12, 2019 12:41 IST

An eight-year old girl, who had been missing from her house since Sunday evening was found dead, stuffed in a gunny bag at her neighbour’s house at Nallakunta area of Ibrahimpatnam on the outskirts of Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh on Monday, the police said.

“The girl’s body was found stuffed in a gunny bag in the house of her neighbour Mekala Prakash by his wife on Monday morning,” said DKN Mohan Reddy, Bhavanipuram police inspector.

Area residents thrashed the neighbour and handed him over to the police. “We have sent the girl’s body to a hospital for post-mortem. We are yet to find out whether there was any sexual assault on the girl,” Reddy said.

The girl’s father, a daily-wage labourer and mother, a sweeper at a nearby college, told the police that their daughter had gone out to play at around 3 pm in the evening on Sunday and had not returned.

“The parents and their relatives searched for the girl in the locality but in vain. They lodged a complaint with the police station. We, too, searched for the girl and went through CCTV camera footage from the nearby areas but could not get any clues,” the inspector said.

On Monday afternoon, the neighbour’s wife noticed a plastic gunny bag in a corner of her house. When she opened it, she was shocked to find the girl’s body stuffed in it. She immediately alerted the girl’s parents, who in turn informed the police.

“We took Prakash into custody and are questioning him. We are suspecting it to be a revenge murder,” the inspector said, adding a murder case had been registered and it was being investigated.

The Andhra Pradesh Women’s Commission chairperson, V Padma, visited the girl’s parents and assured them of justice. “It is a heinous crime. We have asked the police to crack the case at the earliest,” she said.

This is the second incident of the murder of a child in Andhra Pradesh. Last week, a five-year-old girl was murdered at a wedding hall in Kurabalakota block of Chittoor district. The police are yet to arrest the accused.