14-year-old raped, bludgeoned to death

Raigad police on Monday arrested a labourer for raping and killing a 14-year-old girl in Roha. The accused, in his early twenties, took her near the valley, where he allegedly bludgeoned her with a stone and then raped her.

According to police, the victim was a resident of Tamdi village. On Sunday, at around 5.45 pm, the girl’s father, 40, who works in the village panchayat, sent her to Tamshet, around three kilometres away, to fetch her grandfather.

The accused who was walking towards Tamshet, asked the victim for a lift on her scooter. The victim however declined. “The accused is a labourer from Tamshet village. He knew the girl, but it is not yet clear if she knew him. There was an argument between the two when she refused to give him the lift. He then attacked her,” said Anil Paraskar, Raigad superintendent of police.

“He attacked her and dragged her by her hair into the valley, around 200 to 250 feet deep. There, he repeatedly hit her on the head with a stone and after she was defenceless, he raped her,” said another senior officer.

He left her body on a large boulder in the bushes and fled. After the girl did not return home, the local villagers formed a search team. Around 9.30pm, they found a scooter on the side of the road, but found no sign of the girl. They then went deep into the valley where they found her body on the boulder.

“We found at least two impact wounds on her head,” said Kirankumar Suryawanshi, deputy superintendent of police, Roha.

The police had formed eight teams to crack the case. The police got their lead when they suspected the role of a villager from Tamshet. The only residential area ahead of the route is Tamshet village and it was unlikely for someone with no knowledge of the route to be involved.

“Following inquiry, we arrested the accused within 12 hours from his house. He has confessed to the crime. It appears he committed the crime alone, but we are still investigating to find out if a second person was involved,” said Sachin Gunjal, additional superintendent, Raigad.

The girl’s body was sent to JJ Hospital in Mumbai for an autopsy. The accused was arrested from his house on Monday morning. He will be produced before a local court on Tuesday. He has a six-month-old daughter.

The police are also probing if the rape and murder was a targeted attack, but no concrete leads have been found to support that, the officer said.