Representative photo

PATNA: In a gruesome incident, a four-year-old girl was raped and strangulated at a village under the Barhariya police station area in Siwan district around midnight on Saturday.

Siwan SP Naveen Chandra Jha said the partly buried body with the girl’s undergarment stuffed in her mouth was recovered on Sunday from a maize field on the outskirts of the village.

“One Mohammad Ziauddin alias Dhannu (20) has been arrested,” Jha said and added, “The accused confessed that he had taken the child to the field and raped before strangulating her with his hands.”

Jha said the victim had gone to a nearby house where a marriage was being solemnized. “The incident took place between 10pm and 11pm when Ziauddin spotted the girl and lured her to the maize field,” he said.

The SP said the girl’s mother got worried when she did not return home till late in the night. “During search, some villagers informed the family that she was last spotted with Ziauddin, a daily wager, who was engaged in erecting the tent at the marriage function,” he said, adding the girl’s father works in the Middle East.

When police grilled Ziauddin, he told about the spot and the body was recovered, the SP said. “Ziauddin had stuffed the girl’s underwear in her mouth so that her cries could not be heard,” he said and added that forensic experts from Muzaffarpur would match the marks of slippers found on loose soil with that of the accused. “The forensic experts also took samples of the soil which was found in his nails. They also found bloodstains and fluids on his clothes,” he said.

