The Coimbatore City Police on Friday arrested a man on charges of sexually assaulting and murdering a Class X girl, whose decomposed body was found on Thursday in the outskirts of the city.
According to the police, Muthukumar, 44, a construction worker, was known to the family of the 14-year-old girl. The police said he had confessed to committing penetrative sexual assault on the girl and murdering her, after which he stuffed the body in a plastic sack and threw it into thorny bushes, about 150 m from his residence.
The accused also allegedly broke into the residence of the girl and stole 1.75 sovereigns of jewellery following the murder.
The all-women police, Coimbatore East, booked Muthukumar under Sections 5(n) (whoever being a relative of the child through blood or adoption or marriage or guardianship or in foster care or having a domestic relationship with a parent of the child or who is living in the same or shared household with the child, commits penetrative sexual assault on such child) read with Section 6 (Punishment for aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, along with Sections 302 (Punishment for murder), 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence) and 380 (Theft in dwelling house, etc.) of the Indian Penal Code. He was remanded in judicial custody.
Addressing mediapersons at the Office of the Commissioner of Police, Deputy Commissioner of Police E.S. Uma said the accused committed the murder to falsely claim to the mother that the girl took the jewellery and eloped with someone.
The police recovered jewellery weighing 4.25 sovereigns from the accused following the arrest, she said.
The mother of the victim, who visited the Office of the Commissioner of Police on Friday, told mediapersons that the accused allegedly borrowed jewellery, weighing 2.5 sovereigns, from her and did not return it.
Following this, Muthukumar allegedly called the girl to his house, which was close to her residence, claiming that he would return the jewellery. However, he murdered her and threw her body in the bushes.
