Lakhimpur Kheri (UP): A man, accused of strangling a 13-year-old girl of his village to death, was arrested following an encounter here, police said on Thursday. The accused, Saddam, was arrested on Wednesday night from an area under Singahi police station limits, Superintendent of Police Ganesh Prasad Saha said.
On October 8, Saddam had forcibly taken the girl to a sugarcane field with "ulterior motive" when she was returning from her madrassa in Tikunia police station area, the SP said. As the girl started shouting for help, the accused strangled her to death to conceal his crime and fled the spot, Saha said.
The SP said that on Wednesday night, the accused after being challenged by the police teams on his trail, opened fire and in the retaliatory firing he was injured in the leg. He was then arrested, he said. After the minor girl went missing on October 8, a complaint was lodged at Tikunia police station in this regard. The next day, the girl's body with grievous injury marks on her face, eyes and legs was recovered from the field in Tikunia area, police said.
Though the parents of the girl had alleged murder after outraging her modesty, the postmortem examination carried out by a panel of four doctors on October 10 could not confirm the rape allegations, they said. The postmortem report established the cause of death as 'throttling', deputy police superintendent Sandip Singh said. Through mobile surveillance, the location of accused Saddam was detected on the spot on the day of crime, following which he was arrested, police said.
