12-Year-Old Boy Rapes 6-Year-Old Girl, Kills Her By Smashing Her Face With A Stone

A 12-year-old boy has been arrested for raping and murdering a 6-year-old girl in the Indian state of Chandigarh.

Police found the semi-naked body of the girl in a forest area near the Hallo Majra area on Sunday morning, reported Hindustan Times.

Kuldeep Singh Chahal, senior superintendent of police in Chandigarh, said the boy was a neighbor of the murdered girl. "The 12-year-old boy took the girl on his cycle. He later killed her by hitting her on the head with a stone," Chahal said.

The child went missing on Friday after going out to play with friends. Her mother, who was with her younger siblings, panicked when she found out the girl had not turned up for her lessons at 5 p.m. (6:30 a.m. ET). She then alerted her husband who works as a factory worker.

When their frantic search did not yield results, the victim's father approached the police. A search mission was launched. More than 100 homes were searched in the area before they found the lifeless body of the victim near a cremation ground in a nearby forest on Saturday morning. The child's face was seen smashed. A rock, which was allegedly used in the crime, was also found nearby.

Investigators then discovered surveillance camera visuals that showed the victim in a bicycle with the boy. The police detained the suspect who is said to have confessed to the crime.

According to the police, the juvenile, whose identity has not been revealed, murdered the girl after he feared that she might tell her parents about the rape. Although the police are yet to receive a postmortem report, they have charged the boy with rape and murder.

In a similar case last week, an 8-year-old boy in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh was left in a critical condition after two unidentified men kidnapped him and chopped off his genitals. He was later dumped in a nearby cane field.

The boy was playing near his house when two bike-borne men abducted him. Passers-by, who spotted the boy in the field, rushed him to a nearby health facility for treatment. He was transferred to the district hospital later as his condition deteriorated.