9-year-old boy sexually assaulted, killed in Tamil Nadu; minor arrested
A 17-year-old boy has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting and murdering a nine-year-old boy in Tamil Nadu's Pudukkottai district, police said on Monday. The
A 17-year-old boy has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting and murdering a nine-year-old boy in Tamil Nadu's Pudukkottai district, police said on Monday. The case was first registered as a suspicious death, but police later added charges of murder and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act after their investigation. The victim, a Class 4 student and the son of an agricultural daily wage worker, was found dead near a pond about 100 metres from his house in Karukkakurichi village near Karambakudi late on the night of June 27.
He had gone out to play with friends at around 6.30 pm. Police said the boy had injury marks on his neck and face and was found without his trousers. Read Full Story Investigators examined the spot with the help of a sniffer dog. A breakthrough came on the morning of June 28, when children who had been playing with the victim told investigators that the 17-year-old suspect, who is from the same area, had taken the younger boy away shortly before he went missing.
Based on this information, police picked up the teenager for questioning. "During the course of the investigation, the boy confessed that he had tried to make sexual advances towards the nine-year-old. When the child resisted and tried to escape, he strangled him with a cloth and murdered him," a police source said. The accused, who is a minor, was later lodged in a home for juveniles in conflict with the law on Monday morning.
Police said the death, first treated as suspicious under Section 194 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, has now been turned into a murder case with provisions of the Pocso Act, following the alleged confession and the findings of the investigation. Ends
