Crime Branch to probe paedophile on unsolved rape, murders of minors

Rehan Qureshi

Mumbai Crime Branch officials have begun gathering information about unsolved cases in which minor girls were raped and murdered in the past 10 years. On Monday the Navi Mumbai police had revealed that Rehan Qureshi was also behind the rape and murder cases of two minor girls in Nehru Nagar in 2010. Two similar cases were registered in South Mumbai's Colaba and Cuffe Parade which are still unsolved.

Till now Qureshi has confessed to 20 offences, of which two are the Nehru Nagar cases. "There are some cases in Mumbai which are still unsolved and we want to look at all of them once," said a senior Crime Branch officer In April 2012, a three-year-old girl's body was found in the sea near Maker Tower. She was missing from Ambedkar Nagar. Police suspect her father's role but the case is unsolved.

From December 2011 to April 2012, three minor girls went missing in the Colaba-Cuffe Parade area and were later found raped and murdered. The police have questioned over 200 suspects in the case.

There is one more case registered in this period in which a girl went missing from Meghwadi and was found raped and murdered in the Aarey forest. The Crime Branch is preparing to interrogate Qureshi regarding these cases. "We have asked our officers to gather the status of the cases. We are also finding if the DNA samples of the accused in those cases is preserved," said another officer. "It will take 2-3 days to gather this information, after this we will approach Navi Mumbai police for Qureshi's interrogation," he added.

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