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NEW DELHI: A man abducted his girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter and killed her at a house in east Delhi’s Ghazipur.

The man was in a relationship with the woman and wanted to marry her. When he proposed, she gave a conditional answer: he would have to accept her daughter as his own, and also take care of her and pay for her education. The man didn’t want to lose his love, but he also didn’t want to be father to the girl. So he decided to settle it in a devious manner.

On September 2, the child went out to play with her friends but didn’t return home. The worried mother, after exhausting all means to locate her, approached the police and filed a complaint. A search was launched. The man, Sonu, also joined the search and pretended to help his lady love find her daughter.

Sonu tried to make it appear the handiwork of a trafficking gang and tried to mislead the police. He was nearly successful as the police couldn’t make much headway.

But on September 9, police received information about a decomposed body of a child lying in an under-construction building. Actually, it was the owner of the building who had called up the police. But he also told them something that turned the probe on its head—that Sonu used to come there quite often.

Sonu, anticipating trouble, fled from his house. But he was tracked down and arrested two days later from the same locality. He told the police what the real story was.

He had taken the girl away from her friends by offering to buy her a chocolate. When they reached the building, he gagged her and strangulated her. He then dumped the body there and fled.

He then told the police about his relationship with the woman. Her husband left her last year and returned to his village in Gujarat. This had forced her to take a room elsewhere on rent. Sonu was her immediate neighbour. They soon had an affair.

When the woman’s husband got wind of the affair, he came back and fought with Sonu too. But the relationship continued.

Sonu had initially accepted her demand, but later he had a change of heart. She would often fight with him for that. Then Sonu plotted to finish off the child and took a room at the under-construction house on rent.

Police said he wanted to marry her for money.

