NEW DELHI, June 9: A man who allegedly raped and killed a nine-year-old girl and stuffed her body into a suitcase in northeast Delhi’s Dayalpur area had also attempted to lure another girl into his flat, located just 50 metres from the victim’s residence.
Locals kept a distance from the man, aged around 30 years, who had moved into a flat on the second floor of a five-storey building about a year ago, due to his “criminal” tendencies.
“Some people have heard him beating his wife. Probably, that is the reason she left him,” Naushad, the victim’s uncle, said.He added that about 20 days ago, the man, who has a criminal background, had created a ruckus in the area in an inebriated state.
The victim, a Class-5 student in a government school, had gone to deliver ice to a relative’s house nearby around 7 pm on Saturday.
“Her grandmother had asked her to deliver ice to the relative’s house, located about 150 metres from her residence, as they did not have a fridge. Little did they know that on her way back, that man would lure her inside by pretending to be locked in his own house,” Naushad said.
The girl is survived by her father, an autorickshaw driver, mother, a housewife, and two younger brothers, aged about two years and four years.
On Saturday evening, when the girl did not return home for a long time, her parents began searching for her. According to the victim’s father, they approached several relatives and neighbours, but no one had seen her after her brief visit to the relative’s house.
“She had only gone to deliver ice to our relatives. They said she stayed for five minutes and left. But she never came back. We looked everywhere. Finally, someone told us that she was seen entering a house nearby. That is where we found her in a suitcase,” the girl’s father said.The family members rushed the girl to a local clinic, but the doctor there asked them to take her to a hospital immediately. At the hospital, doctors declared her dead, her father said. (PTI)
