UP: 3-yr-old raped and killed; 30-yr-old neighbour held

Lakhimpur Kheri police on Friday arrested a 30-year-old man for allegedly raping and killing a three-year-old girl from his village who was missing since Wednesday. Police said that the autopsy and the medical examination of the body confirmed that the child was raped before she was strangulated to death.

Additional Superintendent of Police (Lakhimpur Kheri) Arun Kumar Singh said the incident was a fallout of old enmity between the victim’s family and the accused. “In 2014, the wife of the accused was murdered and the child’s uncle was arrested in the case. The uncle is currently out on bail. Both the families are neighbours. On Wednesday, after the child went missing, her family filed a complaint with the police. The next day, police recovered the body of a child from a sugarcane field in the village. The child’s family then filed a murder complaint against the accused,” the ASP said, adding the accused was arrested on Friday after an encounter with the police.

The accused, who has no criminal background, sustained a bullet injury in his leg during the gunfight, police said, adding that his condition is stable. A constable was injured, said police

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This is the third such incident of rape and murder in the district in the last one month.

On August 14, a 13-year-old girl’s body was found from a field. She was also raped before being murdered. Two persons have been arrested in the case.

Nearly two weeks later, an 18-year-old girl, who was also raped, was found dead outside her village in Lakhimpur Kheri. Police have arrested one person.