The man has been identified as Christil (36), a native of Thiruvananthapuram who has been residing in Aluva for the past one and a half years.
The arrested accused Christil. (Screengrab)
A man suspected of allegedly abducting and sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl and then abandoning her in a paddy field in the Aluva area of central Kerala on Thursday, 7 September, was caught by police several hours after the incident on the same day.
The man has been identified as Christil (36), a native of Thiruvananthapuram who has been residing in Aluva for the past one and a half years. The arrested person is a habitual offender who was recently released from prison.
He was caught near the Aluva bridge on Thursday evening after the staff of a bar, where he was drinking alcohol, alerted the police.
The suspect attempted to escape from the police by jumping into the nearby river and swimming away but was caught with the help of local residents and pulled out of the water.
Visuals aired by news channels showed the suspect being captured by the police with the help of the people living in the area and being taken away from the spot.
The people told the media that the police had been in the area in plain clothes ever since the incident, looking for the perpetrator.
“He was drinking under the bridge and, on seeing the police, jumped into the water to escape. But police and other persons stopped him from escaping and pulled him out of the water,” one of the local people said.
The suspect appeared drunk, he added.
The survivor, the daughter of a migrant couple, has been admitted to the Government Medical College Hospital at Kalamassery. The police stated her condition to be stable.
The incident came to light when the girl’s mother raised an alarm on finding her missing around 2 am. A man in the neighbourhood, Sukumar, saw the culprit carrying the girl and alerted the neighbours and the police.
A neighbourhood search team reportedly found the girl lying in a pool of blood in a field around 5.30 am.
“The survivor has suffered injuries to her private areas, and will undergo a surgery,” he added.
The arrested was accused of a robbery case in Perumbavoor, in 2022. He reportedly fled from his native in 2017 after being accused of raping an old woman.
Incidentally, the latest incident came more than a month after the abduction, rape, and murder of the five-year-old daughter of a migrant couple at Aluva market on 28 July.
The accused in the case, Ashfaq Alam, was arrested, and a charge sheet was submitted on 1 September.
(With PTI inputs)
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