Vasai murder scandal: Boy kills 8-year-old girl for teasing him; held along with his father

Palghar: A teenage boy allegedly killed an eight-year-old girl, who was his next-door neighbour in Palghar district of Maharashtra, as he was miffed with her for teasing him, police said.

The incident occurred on December 1 at a chawl in Pelhar village and the crime came to light after the girl's body was recovered three days later. The police on Wednesday detained the boy from Jalna district for the murder and arrested his father on the charge of trying to dispose of the victim's body, an official said.

The accused boy is 16 years old, the official of Pelhar police station in Vasai taluka said.

"The girl went missing last Friday after she stepped out of home to buy ice-cream. Her family members later filed a missing person's report and the police launched a search operation, but in vain. On December 4, her highly-decomposed body was found stuffed in a plastic bag in an unoccupied room in the same chawl," the official said.

Following this, the police registered a case under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 363 (kidnapping), 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) against unidentified persons and sent the body to a government hospital for post-mortem, he said.

During the probe, the police found that a 16-year-old boy from the same chawl went missing ever since the body was found, the police official said.

"During the investigation, the police found that the teenage boy was involved in the crime and a deeper probe confirmed that he himself had killed the girl," he said.

"During his interrogation, he told the police that he was annoyed with the victim as she used to tease him and he wanted to teach her a lesson. On December 1, he sensed an opportunity to do so when she stepped out of the house alone at night. He dragged her into his house and strangulated her to death," the police official added.

But as he did not know what to do with the victim's body, he kept it hidden in their house for two days and later confided in his father about it. The duo later shifted the body to an unoccupied room in their chawl, he said.

The investigation revealed that the girl's slippers were found at the entrance of the accused persons' room, which led to suspicion about their role. It also came to light that the man had sent his teenage son to his hometown in Jalna district after the body was recovered, he said, adding that a police team later detained the boy from there and brought him to Pelhar.

Further probe into the case is underway, he said.