29-year-old labourer held for girl’s rape

The Mankhurd police on Thursday arrested a 29-year-old man suspected to be involved in the rape and brutal murder of a four-year-old girl in the area on Sunday. The girl was found dead Monday morning. The police said that the man has confessed to the crime and said he had done it under the influence of alcohol.

According to officials, accused, identified as a Sachin Gopinath Pancharne, worked as a labourer at different construction sites. He stayed with his parents in Maharashtra Nagar in Mankhurd.

“The girl was last seen with her mother who was selling bhel near Mankhurd T junction. She suspects that she saw the accused Sachin around her two or three times before her girl got abducted. ‘He also praised the girl in front of me,’ the girl’s mother said. Later, when she got busy in her business, he allegedly kidnapped her,” a police official said.

The Mankhurd police had got a tip-off about Sachin’s activity and laid a trap to arrest him. “He has been taken into custody on late Wednesday night,” said an official.

A senior police official said, “During interrogation with the accused, he has accepted that, under the influence of alcohol, he kidnapped the girl and raped her. Later, he got scared and therefore decided to kill her. We have produced him in the court and he is in police custody now. The police said that he is known to be a drug addict in the locality and had a couple of cases of theft registered against him.”

According to sources, the police is interrogating him to find out if he was involved in the Powai rape and murder case of another four-year-old girl.”

After the girl was reported to be missing on Sunday, the Mankhurd police registered a case and started a search for the accused.

According to the police, the victim, who used to stay with her parents in Mankhurd, went missing around 10.30 pm. Her mother told the police that they had a small chaat business. The mother used to take the girl to the stall. The girl would play with other children near the stall.

The Mankhurd police got some CCTV footage of the surrounding area where they identified the accused, but his face was not clear. So they made a sketch and showed it to the mother of the deceased girl who recognised the person.

An elder cousin (12) of the girl had also gone missing a year ago, and the police doubt the accused is involved in her kidnapping too.