Ghaziabad: 19-year-old wanted for kidnap and rape of seven-year-old girl held after gunfight

A 19-year-old man, who allegedly kidnapped and raped a seven-year-old girl on the night of Dussehra on Sunday was arrested on Monday night, following a gunfight in which he was shot and injured, senior police officers said on Tuesday.
Police said the suspect, Saddam Jaman, a resident of Nandgram, allegedly kidnapped the girl from the Ramlila ground in Nandgram and took her to an isolated stretch of river Hindon near the City Forest area and left her there unconscious after raping her.
Explaining the sequence of events, police said the girl and her mother had come to her father’s shop outside the Ramlila ground on Dussehra night. The child went to the ground to roam around the fair and was picked up by the suspect, police said.
“Around 11.30pm, when the Ravana effigy was about to go up in flames, my daughter went to look around the fair. When she did not return even after some time, we started looking for her and after a couple of hours, around 3am (on October 13), we found her in an unconscious state near the City Forest. She had injuries to her private parts and was unconscious,” the girl’s father said in his complaint at Nandgram police station.
He said when the girl regained consciousness, she narrated the ordeal to her parents.
“She told us that a man picked her up and slapped her when she tried to resist. He then took her near the river and sexually assaulted her and threatened ti kill her if she told anyone about what had happened,” the father said in his complaint.
Based on his complaint, the police registered an FIR under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 137(2) (kidnapping), 115(2) (voluntary causing hurt), 351(3) (criminal intimidation) and 65(2) (rape on woman under twelve years of age) besides the police also levied sections 5m (penetrative sexual assault on a child below twelve years) and 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
Police said several teams were formed on October 14 to trace the suspect.
“The family did not inform us when the child went missing and they started looking for her on their own. After the police were informed, we scanned the footage from dozens of CCTV cameras in the area and zeroed in on the suspect man. Thereafter, we roped in teams to identify the suspect. Finally, the man was traced and arrested. The girl identified him. The police team later took him to the scene of crime to recover his undergarments which he had hid there after raping the girl. He had also hid a countrymade weapon there,” said Poonam Mishra, assistant commissioner of police (city 2).
Mishra said when the police team was making recovery, the suspect pulled out the weapon and fired at the police team.
“He sustained a gunshot wound to his leg in the retaliatory fire from the police. He was finally overpowered and taken to a hospital for treatment,” Mishra said.
The police said that suspect was additionally booked under BNS section 109(1) (attempt to murder) and provisions of the Arms Act at Nandgram police station for firing at the police team.