Mumbai: Missing 4-year-old's body found in water tank

Just two days after a four-year-old girl was found to have been raped and murdered in Mankhurd, another girl of the same age was found dead in Powai three days after she went missing from home. This is the third such incident in three weeks.

Read Story: 4-year-old raped, murdered; body dumped on Sion-Panvel Highway

The opening to the tank where the girl's body was found

On Sunday, a four-year-old girl's body was found floating inside an underground water tank near the Tunga Vihar road in Powai. She lived nearby, in a chawl in Tunga village, and had gone missing on Sunday. Her mother is a constable in training and had gone to the police training camp with her husband, while the girl was left in her grandmother's care.

Cops carry out the panchnama of the crime scene in Powai

After she disappeared, her family approached the Powai police who registered a kidnapping case after 24 hours. They formed a special team to find the little girl and during the search operation, one of the officers spotted her clothes drying near the underground tank in an isolated ground.

The officer went closer and was shocked to see her body floating inside. The body was identified by the girl's family, who now blame the police for starting the search too late.

In two such recent cases, the minors had been raped. Police sources said this four-year-old's body has also been sent for post-mortem to determine whether she was sexually assaulted.

Sources added that the security guard of the ground had been detained as the prime suspect. The ground had boundary walls on all four sides and there were two gates. Even if someone else entered and dumped the body there, it's unlikely it could have happened without the security guard's knowledge.

In all three recent cases, the accused are yet to be identified or arrested.