In a brutal incident, two persons lured a seven-year-old girl away from her family living near a worksite in Raj Nagar Extension of Ghaziabad, gang-raped her on the third floor of the under-construction building, killed her by hitting her on the head with a rod and threw her body into the basement of the worksite on Friday night, police said.

The police said they have arrested two people in connection with the incident. (Sakib Ali/HT File Photo)

The police said they have arrested two people in connection with the incident.

Deputy commissioner of police Dhawal Jaiswal said, “We arrested a 22-year-old man, while the other suspect is a minor aged 16; he has been apprehended. The 16-year-old planned the crime, instigated the 22-year-old and they killed her to hide their identities.”

“Their involvement was established on the basis of CCTV footage. In one sequence, they were seen taking the girl along, while in another, they were seen taking the girl into an under-construction mall. The autopsy has confirmed rape and murder,” the DCP said.

Police said that the family of the victim was from Bihar and had been in Ghaziabad for work over the past couple of years. The family was living barely 300 metres from the under-construction building, where they worked.

The girl’s father said they could not find her after 8pm on Friday and they started frantically searching for her. “We spotted her body around 12.30am. She had no clothes, her head and face were bloodstained, and her arm and leg were bent. After we informed the police, they took the body for an autopsy,” he said, at the Hindon mortuary.

He said that the suspects were acquainted with them and lured the girl away on the pretext of buying her a samosa and a cold drink. “After raping her, they threw her into the basement, where we found her dead. She was my only daughter and youngest of the three siblings,” he said.

HT found the scene of the crime filled with debris and thick bloodstains on the ground.

An officer privy to the investigation, asking not to be identified, said, “The suspects hit the girl’s head with an iron rod that is used as part of erecting the shuttering. It was lying scattered at the under-construction site.”

On a complaint from the girl’s father, the police registered a case.

An FIR was registered under sections 70(2) (gang rape), 65(2) (rape of a woman under 12 years of age), 66 (for causing death or resulting in persistent vegetative state of victim), 140(1) (kidnapping or abduction), 103(1) (murder), and 3(5) (criminal acts done by several persons) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at the Nandgram police station. Police said sections 5(g), 5(e), 5(r) and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act were also added to the FIR.