4-month-old girl raped-murdered in Indore, man held

A man has been arrested for allegedly raping and killing a four-month-old baby girl in Indore city of Madhya Pradesh, police said, a day after the infant's body was found in the basement of a commercial building in Indore.

Naveen Gadge, 25 and a cousin of the victim's mother, was arrested on Friday night from the city, a police official said.

On Friday, police had detained three-four people in connection with the crime and identified the main suspect as Sunil Bheel, 21. But on Saturday, Indore Deputy Inspector General H C Mishra told reporters that the police department has found Gadge as the accused in the case after a thorough investigation.

Police have released Bheel after questioning.

Detailing the sequence of events, the senior police officer said Gadge's wife separated from him a few days ago.

"On Thursday night, he went to the girl's mother and asked her to persuade his wife to return to him. However, an altercation broke out between them and he was told to leave," Mishra said.

Early Friday, Gadge returned to the family, who earn their living selling balloons, when they were sleeping under an open space near the historic Rajwada Palace and abducted the girl, the DIG said.

"CCTV images show he carried the baby on his shoulder and took her to the basement of a commercial building, around 50 metres away from where her family was sleeping," Mishra said.

After raping the child, he threw her on the ground from a height and she died, he said.

Her body was found in the basement.

The post-mortem examination of the girl, done at the state-run MY Hospital in Indore, suggested she might have been raped before being killed as her private parts bore injury marks, a source said.