A three-and-a-half-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her neighbour, who stays in the same building, in north Delhi’s Sarai Rohila on Monday evening.

Police said, preliminary investigation revealed that the 35-year-old accused allegedly kidnapped the girl from outside her home on the pretext of buying her a chocolate. Police said he took her to an isolated area near Dayabasti station and allegedly raped and strangled her, before leaving her to die in a six-foot ditch.

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But the girl, who became unconscious, was found alive by police around 10 hours later. The accused has been arrested while the girl is recuperating in Hindu Rao hospital, Deputy Commissioner of Police (north district) Madhur Verma said. The girl is said to be out of danger.

“On Monday afternoon, the girl’s parents had gone to meet their relatives. They discovered that she was missing when they returned at 8 pm,” police said.

The girl’s father immediately informed police. “Police found that she was last seen with the accused. They arrested him from his home, where he was found drunk,” police said.

The accused tried to mislead investigators but police found a bloodstain on his shirt.

After sustained interrogation, he broke down and confessed. “He told police that he took her near Dayabasti station, where he consumed liquor and raped her. After that, he strangled her and thought she had died. He dumped her in a pit and went home. Police rescued the girl and took her to the hospital,” an officer said.

2012 gangrape: DCW application in HC

New Delhi: The Delhi Commission for Women Tuesday approached the Delhi HC, urging it to “implead” the commission as a party in the suo motu action it initiated after the gangrape of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi on December 16, 2012. A day after DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal said her requests to improve Centre-state cooridination to improve women’s safety had fallen on “deaf ears”, the commission filed an intervention application in the HC following the alleged rapes of a three-and-a-half-year-old in Sarai Rohilla and a four-year-old in Keshav Puram on Monday. ENS

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