Coimbatore girl rape and murder case: Prime accused assaulted in jail by fellow inmates

COIMBATORE: The prime accused in the abduction, sexual assault and murder case of a 10-year-old girl near Sulur was assaulted by fellow inmates in Coimbatore Central Prison here on Saturday afternoon.

According to a prison source, what started as an altercation inside the complex during the lunch hours ended in fistfight, leaving the rape and murder accused, K Karthi, 33, a native of Nagapattinam district, with fresh injuries to his hands and legs.

Prison authorities intervened to bring the situation under control, and Karthi was rushed to Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital for treatment under tight security.

The incident occurred at a time when Karthi was yet to recover from the severe injuries that he sustained in the run up to his arrest. On the night of May 22, when a special team of police tracked him down to the first floor of an apartment at Kannampalayam where he was hiding, Karthi attempted to evade arrest by jumping from the building. The fall resulted in fractures to his right hand and right leg, after which he was apprehended and hospitalized before being remanded in judicial custody.

Karthi was arrested for raping a minor girl, who was his neighbour. The girl went missing from outside her residence on May 21. Her body was found on May 22. An intensive police investigation involving the analysis of nearly 250 CCTV cameras revealed that Karthi, a neighbour who was known to the family, had lured the child away on his two-wheeler by promising her chocolates, and murdered her after sexually assaulting her in a nearby coconut plantation close to Kannampalayam lakebed.

During interrogation, Karthi confessed to the crime. Police subsequently arrested his accomplice, R Mohan, 30, who assisted in the crime. The duo were subsequently booked under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, and were later detained under the stringent Goondas Act.