Lonavala: Autopsy confirms rape on girl who went ‘missing’

Additional superintendent of police (Lonavala Division) Vijaykumar Magar confirmed that post-mortem report revealed rape. Along with the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections pertaining to kidnapping, murder and destruction of evidence, police have invoked rape charges and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

Deputy superintendent of police Bhaskar Thorat said, “We are checking videos recorded during the ceremony. We are probing all angles. We started recording statements of those who attended the marriage ceremony, the hotel staff, management and the staff employed by the caterer.”

The function was in the afternoon on Sunday. During the reception at night, the girl’s father gave her food and went to get a plate for himself. He spent a some time talking to other guests.

When he returned to the place where he had left her, she could not be found. The body was found on the terrace of the hotel under a solar heater panel. Police sources said a bottle of liquor was found near the body but senior police officers refused to confirm it. The body was handed over to the family on Wednesday afternoon.

Will fight for justice, says father

The father of the girl said he will fight for justice. Relatives of the victim alleged police inaction when they first went to report that the girl was missing on Sunday.”

“Only a monster can do something like this to a child. I will fight for justice. We want police to probe the matter thoroughly and find out who did this to my daughter,” said the girl’s father.

One of the relatives said, “When we first went to register the missing complaint with the police on Sunday night, they refused. They asked us to search for her on our own. Even the hotel staff did not co-operate initially. If these people had done something, this heinous crime could have been prevented. All these people woke up to reality very late, by that time the worst had happened.”

Senior police officers refuted the allegations. “These are baseless. Our staffers cooperated from the beginning and a case was immediately registered. Our priority is to arrest suspect or suspects as the case may be.”

People ransack hotel, police use force

Police deployed in the vicinity of the hotel after a mob attacked it on Wednesday. (Source: Express photo by Sushant Kulkarni

A mob that gathered on Wednesday morning outside Kumar Resort in Lonavala, where a 7-year-old girl’s body was found, turned violent and pelted stones at the hotel and damaged property. The police had to use force to stop them.

Shops in Lonavala  closed immediately after the incident and opened in the evening. Police were deployed in Lonavala after the incident.

As per information given by Lonavala police, a group of women started protesting outside the hotel on Wednesday and at some distance another a group of people from Lonavala and neighbouring places like Kamshet, Khopoli and Khandala gathered.

A police officer from Khandala police said, “Around 11 am, the mob turned violent and started pelting stones. More people started gathering and entered the hotel. They broke glass and damaged property. Initially, there was a small police force at the spot but we had to call in reinforcements to control the mob. We had to resort to lathicharge. But by the time we could control the mob, they had damaged a lot of property. A case will be registered in this regard.”

Manohar Badhwani of Kumar Resort said, “Our property worth lakhs of rupees has been damaged. We will be registering an FIR in the case and we are extending our full cooperation to the police in the investigation. We had helped the family in the search for the girl.”

A local resident Balasaheb Paigude said, “We think it was the anger of people against inaction of the police not just in this case but also in the past. Because of all the hotels located in the square where this particular hotel stands, severe traffic jams are caused on weekends. Queues several kilometers long are always ignored by police and they have taken no action against hotels that blatantly flout parking rules.”