AJMER: Police on Tuesday arrested a 26-year-old man for raping and killing a 11-year-old girl on the hills near Bajnath Mahadev Temple in Pushkar.
The accused also smashed the face of the girl with stones to hide her identity.
The victim and the accused are from the same village.
There was anger among the public on Tuesday after the half-naked body of the minor girl was found near Bajnath Mahadev Temple area, situated on a hill in Pushkar, on Monday midnight, with her face smashed.
Superintendent of police, Ajmer, Jagdish Chand Sharma constituted a 12-member special team and directed to arrest the accused as soon as possible.
Police detained half a dozen suspects and began investigating.
The cops also collected information from the villages nearby.
Police also activated informers all around.
It then came out that one Surender alias Satu went to the hill on Monday evening and returned late in the night.
Police interrogated him and the accused confessed to raping and killing the minor girl after he saw her alone.
Police said that the girl was studying in class VII and because the schools are closed, she would help her family by taking the goats to graze.
On Monday afternoon, she was grazing the goats with other villagers of Hokara.
In the evening, she was informed by some children that dogs had attacked her goats on the hill and therefore, she ran up to the tip of the hill to save her goats.
The villagers, thinking that the girl must have returned home, left from there after it was dark.
However, when the victim did not return home late into the night, her family members started searching for her and later, her body was found in the bushes.
Her slippers and the axe that she carried with her, were also found near the body.
Police said that the victim had five sisters and one younger brother.
Her father works as a construction labourer and her mother would rear goats and sell their milk.
Her father said that she was good at studies and because of the lockdown, the schools had closed and so she used to graze goats to help her mother.
(The victim’s identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)