PUNE: A one-year-old girl was sexually assaulted and murdered by a 22-year-old youth on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday in Loni Kalbhor. The police arrested the accused within a few hours of the horrific incident.

The accused, Malhari Bansod (22) of Kadam Wagh Vasti in Loni Kalbhor, kidnapped the girl from a footpath near Loni Kalbhor railway station, where she was sleeping with her family. Bansod was arrested in the wee hours of Friday from Loni Kalbhor.

The infant’s family is from Vellore district of Tamil Nadu and resides on the footpath near Loni Kalbhor station. They do menial jobs for a living. According to the Loni Kalbhor police, the infant was kidnapped by the accused between 9.30 pm and 11.30 pm. He abducted her after observing that her family members were fast asleep. 

After the infant’s abduction was discovered by her family, they started searching for her and reported the matter to the police at 2.30 am. The body of the girl was found on a footpath by locals in the wee hours of Friday.

Kranti Kumar Patil, Police Inspector, Loni Kalbhor police station, said, “After being informed about the incident, we set up two teams and started searching for the accused. We saw the accused abducting the infant in a CCTV footage, but his face was not clear. However, we observed that he has a particular way of walking, on the basis of which we started searching from him and managed to arrest him.” Patil added that Bansod sexually assaulted the girl and then murdered her. The police have registered a case of rape and murder and invoked POCSO against the accused.