Confronted with CCTV clips, Pune child rape-murder accused says girl got hurt after fall

While the court recorded the man’s statement under Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which allows the judge to question the accused directly and ensures they have the right to be heard, the man was also confronted with CCTV footage and prosecution evidence.

A brutal assault and murder

According to the prosecution, the accused lured the girl from a spot near a temple in the village in the Pune district on the afternoon of May 1 and took her to a cowshed located nearby, saying he would give her a snack and show her a calf.

The prosecution has said he allegedly raped the girl, gagged her with a cloth, and then killed her by brutally assaulting her with his hands. The prosecution has also claimed that after killing the girl, the accused also sexually assaulted her body. He allegedly tried to destroy the evidence of his crime by dumping the body in the cowshed.

When the girl failed to return home, her family and villagers started searching for her, but her body was found in the cowshed, and the accused was caught. Subsequently, the police arrested him.

The prosecution has also claimed that the accused’s semen was found on the girl’s body and that a DNA test has confirmed it.

CCTV footage and denial

The accused was shown CCTV footage of him buying gathi shev at a local shop. While he initially denied that the man in the clip was him, he later identified himself after watching it multiple times in the packed courtroom.

He was then shown another footage in which he was seen holding the girl’s hand and walking with her towards the cowshed at around 3.12 pm. He identified himself in this CCTV footage, but said he did not know the girl.

The accused was shown another clip captured by the same CCTV at the same spot, in which he was seen returning alone around 3.51 pm.

Based on the two CCTV videos, Special Judge Salunkhe noted that the accused went to the cowshed with the girl, but she was missing when he returned. “What happened to the girl?” the court asked the accused.

The accused said the girl was with him in the cowshed and he did give her some gathi shev, but later, when he lifted her, he slipped and collapsed on the ground. “Due to it, the girl sustained injuries to her head and started crying. I kept the girl on a cot in the shed. Assuming that people would blame me for assaulting her, I left the spot,” the accused said.

He added that two villagers caught him after 10 minutes. Soon, the police nabbed and questioned him for murdering the girl. The accused claimed that he came to know from the police that the girl had died.

Special Judge Salunkhe also questioned the accused about his cousin’s claim that he had allegedly engaged in unnatural sex with an animal decades ago, which the accused denied.

The court further questioned him about the two cases against him for allegedly attempting rape to rape an elderly woman in 1998 and molesting his 17-year-old niece in 2015. The accused said he was acquitted because he had not committed the crimes.

The Pune Rural police filed a over 1,000-page chargesheet against the accused on May 16 under several sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act.

Charges were framed against the accused on May 28. Final arguments in this case will begin Saturday.