india

Updated: Jan 24, 2019 09:53 IST

An 18-year-old class 12 student was arrested by Ghaziabad Police on Wednesday for allegedly attempting to rape a six-year-old girl and later strangulating her to death when he resisted his attempt.

Police said the suspect, the girl’s private tutor, also tried to allegedly sexually assault the body before dumping it.

The incident took place in Loni on Monday evening.

The girl had returned home around 7pm from her tuitions but left again soon, saying “bhaiya” was calling her and that she would be back soon. She did not return.

Her father found her body the next morning outside a mosque when he went to offer prayers after a night-long reach.

Police arrested Faizul Islam, a student of a government school in Delhi, who used to teach eight children, including five girls, in his neighbourhood.

The cops got a hint about his involvement as the girl had told her family that “bhaiya” was calling her. Her family told police she used to refer to Faizul as “bhaiya” and this led them to close in on him during investigation.

“On Monday evening, the accused called the girl, saying he would give her an eraser. He took her to his maternal uncle’s house, where he used to take tuitions. There was no one in the house at that time. He took her to a room on the first floor, where he tried to assault her but she started crying. He gagged her with his hand when she tried to resist,” AK Maurya, superintendent of police (rural), said.

Police said the girl lost consciousness and later died. He took her to the roof and wrapped her body in a quilt to hide it. “He was planning how to dump the body, while the girl’s family started searching for her. Around 1.30am, once the streets became quiet, he dumped the body on a sand pile outside the mosque and went to sleep,” Maurya said.

Police said based on the initial investigations, they booked the accused for rape, murder and destruction of evidence, besides levying provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

“We recovered the quilt he used to hide the body on the roof and the slippers of the victim which he had hidden in the house. He is an adult. Initially, he denied any involvement but later broke down and narrated all events leading to the girl’s murder,” Maurya said.

Police said he had been eyeing the girl for the past one week before the incident.

The officers said he had created a social networking group in which he had invited his known friends and used to chat about pornography.