Kerala rape & murder: Hundreds pay last respects to 5-year-old; sorry daughter, say police | India News
Scores of people paid their last respects to the girl and demanded stringent punishment for the accused. Some even sought death penalty for the horrific crime.
“Sorry daughter,” Kerala Police said in a tweet on Saturday, expressing sorrow over the gruesome incident.
“Our efforts to bring her alive to her parents were unsuccessful. The suspect who kidnapped the child was arrested,” the post in Malayalam read.
Meanwhile, emotions ran high as the crowd, visibly moved, attended the funeral of the girl at the public cemetery around 11am on Sunday.
Many in the crowd were seen crying as the last rites were performed and the coffin was laid into the ground, according to visuals shown on TV.
On Friday, the girl was abducted, brutally raped and killed by a migrant worker from Bihar who lived in the same building as the child’s family who too hailed from the same state.
Her body was found dumped in a sack in a marshy area behind a local market in the nearby Aluva area on Saturday. It was found covered in plastic and waste.
The accused was arrested on Friday itself, but could not be interrogated as he was in an inebriated state, police had said.
‘Hand him over to public’
Several women, including mothers of the victim’s playmates and classmates, who were present at the school and the cemetary broke down and said that keeping the accused in jail and feeding him would not be justice.
“He should be killed in the same manner he killed the child. If the government cannot do it, hand him over to the public,” they said.
Another woman said that it was a “shocking and heart-wrenching” incident.
“It is unbearable. I could not sleep properly after hearing about this incident. Our laws need to be made more stringent. This should not happen again,” she said.
Congress MLA Anwar Sadath said he wants the government and the police to ensure that the accused get the highest punishment of death penalty.
“As a representative of the people and as a father that is what I want. I spoke to the Kerala CM yesterday and requested him not to see it as an isolated incident and end the probe here.
“Post this incident, parents everywhere are scared. So the government and the police need to be more vigilant to prevent recurrence of such incidents,” he said.
Becoming emotional while speaking to reporters, the MLA said no one even thought the child would be killed in such a manner and everyone, including him, were hopeful that she would be rescued alive.
BJP’s Kerala unit president K Surendran said there should be a system in place to identify any criminal elements among the migrant workers and the alleged use of drugs by some of them.
“There is no monitoring system in place. People are asking for a policing system based on the Uttar Pradesh model. Policing in Kerala is very weak. Proper investigation is not being carried out,” he alleged.
BJP leader Sobha Surendran also demanded stringent punishment for the accused and urged people to come out on the streets demanding that the government take action to prevent such incidents from recurring.
After the incident, the opposition Congress had come down heavily on the state police and alleged lapses on their part in tracing the child.
Kerala police chief Shaik Darvesh Saheb had rejected the charges and said there were no lapses on behalf of the investigators.
(With inputs from PTI)
