HYDERABAD: A day after a seven-year-old girl's body was found stuffed in a plastic bag in an abandoned spot in Medchal on Tuesday, a man known to the family was arrested for the murder.
Cops said that the accused, Tirupati (31), a private employee, was a close friend of the live-in partner of the child's mother and visited the family often. While ruling out any sexual assault on the child, cops said that Tirupati's motive was to get close to the woman by eliminating the live-in partner and her two children.
The woman, a daily wager, had come to the city from Adilabad a few years ago after the death of her husband in an accident, police said.
On Saturday afternoon, Tirupati lured the girl from her home by promising to take her around on his bike. After driving for around 9 km, he identified an isolated location at Basuregadi village, killed the girl, stuffed her body in the bag and fled from the place.
After the murder, the accused was with the family pretending to be searching for the missing girl. However, he left the place when he realised that the police had intensified the search for the girl.
Based on clues from CCTV footage, he was arrested and remanded to judicial custody on Wednesday, said ACP (Medchal division) B Srinivas Reddy.
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