A seven-year-old girl who was reported missing in a congested southeast Kolkata locality was found dead inside a gunny bag, hidden in the house of a neighbour living in the same building where the child lived.
The child, police said, had been sexually assaulted and strangled. The body was found late on Sunday, a few hours after she was reported missing in Kustia near Tiljala.
“The post-mortem was carried out on Monday. The preliminary report says she was strangled. There were marks of sexual assault on her body,” said a senior police officer at Lalbazar.
Sources said the police found injuries inflicted by nails all over her, indicating torture before murder.
The police have arrested the accused neighbour, Alok Kumar, 32, and charged him with murder and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
One of the investigators said Kumar told them during interrogation that he had committed the crime following an advice from a tantrik, whom he had met at Nimtala Ghat in north Kolkata, so his wife could conceive.
“According to the accused person’s confession, his wife has had multiple abortions. A tantrik had apparently told him that his wife would give birth to a healthy child if he sacrificed a young girl,” said the officer.
Kumar’s wife, who is pregnant, is in Bihar, his native state, the police said.
The child, who had stepped out of her home to throw some garbage, was allegedly dragged by Kumar into his room and then tortured and killed, the police said.
“The child’s body was found stuffed inside a gunny bag in Kumar’s flat. The accused had perhaps planned to dispose of the body the next day,” an officer said.
The deputy commissioner of police, south-east, Subhankar Bhattacharya, said they were verifying the statements of the accused about the motive of the murder.
A compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh has been announced on behalf of the state government for the family of the girl, a police officer of the rank of joint commissioner said.
Police sources said a search had been launched in parts of north and central Kolkata for the tantrik based on the descriptions provided by Kumar.
Kumar was produced in the Alipore court on Monday and remanded in police custody.
“We are trying to ascertain whether he committed the crime alone or was part of a larger criminal conspiracy,” said an officer of the homicide wing of the detective department of the city police.
