UP: Autopsy confirms 3-year-old girl was raped before murder in Lakhimpur Kheri

BAREILLY: The autopsy report of three-year-old girl who was found "brutalised and murdered" in a sugarcane field at Mathiya village in Singahi block of Lakhimpur Kheri district on Thursday has confirmed that she was raped before being killed.
"Everyone including me could feel the pain after watching the body of the girl and I couldn’t stop my tears for a moment.After the autopsy confirmed that the little girl was raped, I feel that this act is an indelible taint on our society. The family has named an accused that has personal enmity but we are investigating this case from another angle as well. I have deployed four teams, including a SWAT team led by a circle officer, who are combing the sugarcane fields in the village where the accused might be hiding," said Satyendra Kumar, SSP Kheri.

Initially, police and family didn’t find any visible injuries on the private parts of the girl but the autopsy conducted by a panel of doctors confirmed internal tears and reason of death as strangulation.

Earlier, the girl’s family suspected that one Lekhraj Gautam had abducted and killed the girl to avenge the death of his wife, who was killed by the girl’s uncle six years ago. Her uncle was recently released on bail and Lekhram had threatened to take the revenge of his wife’s death. An FIR is already registered against Gautam on the complaint of the kin.

The girl was the eldest among two children and had been missing since Wednesday afternoon, following which her family members searched for her, but in vain. “It appeared that the girl was confined in a house in the village and the accused killed her after midnight,” said SHO Singahi Pradeep Kumar.

This is the third such incident where a girl was raped and killed in Kheri.
Earlier, a 13-year-old dalit girl was gang-raped and killed by two in Isanagar area on August 14 and an 18-year-old dalit girl was raped and brutally killed by a youth in Neemgaon area on August 25.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)