07 April,2019 09:30 AM IST | Mumbai | Anurag Kamble
Local residents protest outside Juhu police station. Pic/Sneha Kharabe
A 36-year-old man was arrested for the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in Vile Parle. While checking the CCTV footage, cops noticed that the child, who had been missing since Thursday, was taken away by a man. On being detained, the accused confessed to the crime and admitted to having dumped her body in the sewage tank of a public toilet.
The victim was a resident of a chawl in Nehru Nagar, Vile Parle West and studied at a municipal school. On Thursday evening, she stepped out to buy tea from a nearby hotel. When she did not return, the family lodged a missing person's complaint at the Juhu police station.
"While gathering CCTV footage, we noticed that she was taken away by a man near the hotel," said a police official. "We managed to arrest him after receiving inputs from sources." The accused, identified as Vadivel Devendra alias Gundappa, has been produced in court.
As soon as the news spread in the vicinity, residents started gathering near Juhu police station. "Over 1,000 residents reached the police station and demanded that the accused be handed over to the crowd," said Mutthukumar Devendra, one of the residents. As the number of protesters surged, a special force was deployed to avoid any untoward incident.
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Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma, additional commissioner of police (West region), has assured residents that they will build a water-tight case so that accused does not get away with the crime. He also said that this is not the first time that Devendra had been apprehended by the law.
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According to police sources, Devendra had been booked earlier for child rape. "Eight years ago, he had abducted a six-year-old child and molested her. He was sent to prison for seven years," a source told mid-day. "Ever since he was released from prison in 2017, he has been involved in a lot of illegal activities."
1,000
No. of residents who protested outside the police station
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