Cops crack Quepem girl's murder case

MARGAO: Cracking the murder case of a four-year-old girl from Mumbai, Seema Motivur Khan, whose body was recovered from the elevator well of a building under construction at Quepem on Tuesday, Quepem police on Wednesday arrested Dipak Kumar, 21, from Bihar on charges of killing the child.
What makes the crime more heinous is the fact that the child was done to death after being raped by the accused.
South Goa SP Arvind Gawas said that the postmortem report of the child corroborates the statements of the accused, who has admitted to having sexually abused her before committing the murder. The postmortem report states that the death was "asphyxial" caused "due to smothering and manual strangulation" and that there is evidence of sexual assault.
The accused, a resident of Begusarai district of Bihar, was staying at a rented place at Igramol, Quepem, and had gone to his friend's place nearby where he stayed overnight. While returning home, he saw a number of children playing in front of a chawl. The children knew the accused as he often used to give them toffees. The accused took the girl along with him on the pretext of offering her chocolates, while others stayed behind. "However, he instead took her to the nearby construction site, and raped her on the second floor of the building under construction," Gawas said.
Fearing that the girl would narrate the incident to her parents, the accused decided to get rid of her. He strangulated and smothered her to death. Further, to ensure that she was killed, he then threw her down from the second floor. Moreover, in an attempt to destroy evidence, the accused then tried to cover the face of the child with a sandbag.
"We had zeroed in on the accused hours after the body was found and took him into custody. He confessed only after hours of questioning by the cops," Gawas said.
Quepem PI Santosh Desai, who investigated the case, said that the accused has been remanded to a seven-day police custody.