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Just over a month after a five-year-old migrant girl was abducted before being brutally raped and murdered in Aluva, another minor migrant girl, an eight-year-old, was abducted from her house where she was sleeping with her parents and sexually assaulted at Edayappuram in Keezhmadu panchayat near Aluva early on Thursday.
The accused who was identified by the victim and eyewitness was suspected to be a local and was on the run. The victim, probably saved by the alertness of the local residents, remains admitted at the Government Medical College, Kalamassery.
A search party of local residents had found the girl and restored her with her family, who surprisingly was not even aware that she had been missing for a while. In fact, going by the account of her rescuers, they had to knock the door and window of the house multiple times before the family woke up and came to know about the ordeal of their daughter.
The Aluva East police have registered a case invoking relevant Sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
‘Hunt is on for suspect’
Talking to media, the District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural) Vivek Kumar said that the police were pursuing leads. “The suspect has been identified by the victim and the eyewitness. He is a local and not a migrant as per the preliminary information. We have to confirm the identity after arresting him. The hunt is on,” he said.
Mr. Kumar said that one Sukumaran in the neighbourhood had seen the victim along with the suspect. He alerted the police and by the time the police reached, the locals had taken her to hospital. She had injuries to her private parts for which she had undergone a surgery, Mr. Kumar said.
Mr. Sukumaran claimed that he had heard the girl crying and saw her being taken by the suspect around 2.15 a.m. “The man was gesturing like he was about to beat her to stop crying. I then woke up my wife, turned on the lights outside my house and got out with a torch light,” he told the media.
He then woke up his neighbours and started searching for the girl with two others amid heavy rain. “We heard the bark of a dog following which we went in that direction and searched. But we could not find her. We were about to stop the search fearing that the suspect may have heard us and may harm the girl. That was when we saw a girl coming running and she was bleeding. She was initially scared of us when we asked her to stop. I realised that I know her having dropped her at school a few times,” said an autorickshaw driver who was part of the search team.
Later in the day, the Government Medical College, Kalamassery, issued a medical bulletin stating that the condition of the victim was stable. “She remains admitted in the women’s section. She has been examined by a battery of senior doctors from various departments. After initial treatment, she remains under the observation of expert doctors,” the bulletin said.
On July 28, another five-year-old migrant girl was abducted by a migrant worker in her neighbourhood around 3 p.m. While the accused was nabbed by around 9.30 p.m. on the same day, the victim could not be traced. Eventually, her body was fished out of a near abandoned spot in Aluva market the next day. A special squad of rural police had filed the charge sheet in the case in record time last week.
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