Half-burnt body of minor found in Bengal, accused arrested from Nepal border

A half-burnt body of a seven-year-old girl was found in West Bengal’s Alipurduar district, with police suspecting that she was raped and then murdered. The body of the girl, who has been missing since October 15, was found in Jaigaon on Tuesday.
Three people have been arrested and sent to police custody, police said. The prime accused, Bablu Mia, who was arrested in a dramatic manner from the India-Nepal border, has confessed to the crime, sources told India Today. A postmortem has been conducted to determine the cause of death.
“We have arrested three accused in this case so far. Prompt action was taken as soon as information about the missing girl was received. We got commendable support from the local villagers on the case,” senior Alipurduar police officer Y Raghuvamshi told India Today.
The girl’s family lodged a missing person complaint on October 15. The girl’s family alleged that she was kidnapped by a person named Bablu Mia, who lured her by promising to buy chowmein. The family alleged that Bablu took her to the Jaigaon bus stand and the girl never returned home.
Acting on the complaint, Jaigaon police registered a case and started an investigation. The police team found that Bablu Mia didn’t use any mobile phone, making it difficult for them to track his location.
“So, we had to depend more on our informers. We found that he worked at a brick kiln, but we didn’t have the location of the said facility,” a police source said.
The police then launched a search operation at almost every brick kiln in nearby districts of Coochbehar, Raiganj, and even in Bihar’s Kishanganj. “We collected CCTV footage from different households. As the accused didn’t use a mobile, we had no option,” the source said.
On Tuesday, police received a tip-off that Bablu Mia had been spotted in Nepal. The police then sent some local villagers to Nepal in a secret operation to trace the accused, sources said. The villagers met Bablu Mia, who confessed to the crime. The villagers then returned to India and informed police.
A team was dispatched to the Nepal border and Bablu Mia was arrested on Wednesday while he was attempting to enter India.
“The accused confessed his guilt and stated that two other people were involved in the crime,” police said.
During interrogation, Bablu Mia said he dumped the body of the minor girl in a bush near Daldabari. The police are further investigating the matter and waiting for the postmortem report.