3-year-old found dead in Chennai dumpyard with signs of sexual assault

Mangalore Today News Network

Chennai, Feb 20, 2017: The body of a three-year-old girl, with injuries indicating sexual assault, was found in a dumpyard at Thiruvottiyur in north Chennai, weeks after residents in Mugalivakkam in the south held protests over the sexual assault and murder of a seven-and-a-half-year-old.

According to police, the body showed signs of torture, and sexual assault. “There were injury marks on her lower body,” a police officer told Hindustan Times.

The girl was last seen playing near her house in Thiruvottiyur around 11 am on Saturday. Her parents realised she was missing around 2 pm when they called her for lunch. After a futile search in the neighbourhood, they lodged a complaint at 8 pm.

Police sources said the girl’s abductor sexually assaulted her, before killing her and placing her body in a garbage bin which was later loaded onto a corporation truck and taken to the Thiruvottiyur dumpyard.

A ragpicker, who was rummaging through a garbage heap, discovered the body and told the corporation truck driver, who in turn alerted the dumpyard authorities.

According to an official who was present at the Thiruvottiyur dumpyard when the body was found, the three-year-old’s “mouth was stuffed with cloth and had been gagged. There were also injuries on her head.”

Investigations are currently underway, with police reportedly questioning the neighbours of the deceased’s family.