Mumbai, March 08: Shirish (name changed) never thought his Sunday would start thus. At 10am, the 17-year-old was asked to go to the terrace of his building to air the mattress; a drowsy Shirish was wide awake by what he saw when he reached the top.
Shirish saw dabs of red on the floor on the terrace and as he looked around him he saw a pair of legs sticking out from near the water tank. He sprinted down to alert his neighbours on what he had just seen.
The local (Nehru Nagar) police station was immediately informed, and the investigations started, leading them to identify the girl as the nine-year-old Rashmi (name changed) who went missing since Saturday evening from Hanuman Nagar, which is a kilometre away from the crime scene.
The Sunday’s grisly incident is shockingly similar to the February 10 rape and murder of a six-year-old girl, whose body was found in a gunnybag on a staircase leading to the terrace of a building in Kurla (East). The police still have not made any breakthrough in that case.
The police suspect that the same person may be behind the rape and murder of the two minors as the modus operandi in both the cases is similar.
On first look, in both the cases, the hunch of the police is that the victim and the killer must have known each other, sources said.
In the case of Rashmi whose body was found on Sunday, the profiling of the suspect places him in the teenage to 21-year group. Most of those picked up for questioning are in that age group.
Dilip Sawant, deputy commissioner of police, Zone-VI, said “The dog squad was called to the spot and the sniffer dog led us close to the deceased’s residence. We have picked up six people for questioning and we suspect that the unidentified suspect would be someone known to the deceased.”
Another officer said: “The deceased’s clothes were torn. A Rs2 coin was found near the body which was lying near the water tank.”
The police have registered a case of murder and the body has been sent for post-mortem. They are also questioning the neighbours, including children, to give them lead in the case.
–Agencies–