8-month-old old raped and killed in Madhya Pradesh Indore, accused arrested

Highlights The girl was picked up and raped in an empty basement

Child's parents were sleeping on the street outside Rajwada Fort

The accused who was known to the girl's family has been arrested

Accused Naveen Gadake, 21, is known to the child's family, police said

An eight-month-old girl, fast asleep next to her parents in Indore, was taken away and raped in an empty basement just 200 metres away in the early hours of Friday. The accused, spotted on a CCTV camera carrying the baby on his shoulder , also killed the child after committing the crime, police said. The infant's body was spotted hours later by a shopkeeper who had gone to the basement to open his shop.The child's parents, balloon sellers, were sleeping on the street outside the Rajwada Fort in the city. The accused, a 21-year-old man known to the family, has been arrested, police said."The body of the infant was recovered from the basement of a commercial building. The accused, Naveen Gadke had kidnapped her early on Friday when she was asleep with her parents outside the Rajwada Fort," police said. The police, while looking for clues, scanned the CCTV cameras in the area, which led them to the accused."CCTV footage showed the accused, who is a distant relative of the child, came on a bicycle at around 4.45 am and picked up the girl sleeping next to her parents and headed towards Shiv Vilas palace, across the street. He took the girl to the basement of the commercial complex and sexually assaulted her, her body was recovered in the afternoon," a senior police official said.He also said the accused walked past a police patrol party as well. Police have seized blood stained clothes and the bicycle.The child's body had injury marks on the private parts and the head. "The accused probably threw her to the ground. We are going to arrest him shortly," police said.Condemning the incident, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, "the society needs to introspect... we have arrested the accused. We will make sure the culprit is punished soonest."The rape and murder follows a disturbing pattern emerging even as the country tries to cope with grief and anger over the kidnapping, gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir in January.

In Uttar Pradesh's Etah, a nine-year-old attending a wedding with her family was allegedly raped before being strangled on Thursday night. On Wednesday, a 10-year-old girl's was similarly raped and murdered at a wedding in Chhattisgarh.In Surat, an 11-year-old was raped and murdered and then her body was dumped earlier this month. She had 86 injuries and was also brutalized with blunt objects.