AGRA: Three days after a seven-year-old girl was raped and murdered in a wedding ceremony in Etah district, a nine-year-old was found allegedly raped and murdered in the district on Friday early morning.The incident took place in Kailtha village of Aliganj police jurisdiction, while the victim and her family members were attending ring engagement ceremony of their neighbour’s daughter. The girl’s body was found at around 3:15am in the backyard field of her home nearly 400 meters away.According to victim’s father, “Rachna (named changed) went missing from the ring engagement ceremony at around 9pm and was found raped and murdered after six long hours of search. She was raped by local youth, Pintu (22), who had come to help the neighbour in the preparation of engagement ceremony.”He said, “My daughter was last spotted with Pintu by my niece who was on the roof during the ceremony. Pintu had asked Rachna to bring a glass of water, while he was in the backyard of our home. As soon she brought water, Pintu forced her to come along in field. Since we all were busy in ceremony, we forgot to check as where my daughter was. At 10pm, when I enquired about her from other family members, none knew about her whereabouts.”Grieved for her daughter loss, victim’s mother said, “I want death penalty as justice for my daughter, who was brutally raped and murdered.”According to sources, the girl was strangulated to death before been raped. “Rachna’s face was drench in her puke, which suggest she had struggled alot to get breath while been strangulated. She had also profusely bleed from her abdomen, which had rapture marks,” claimed source.Sanjay Singh, assistant superintendent of police, Etah said, “We have sent the victim’s body for post-mortem, but initial probe has confirmed that she was raped and then murdered. We have arrested the accused named by victim’s family and are interrogating him to ascertain the sequence of event.”Pintu was booked under IPC sections 302 (murder), 376 (rape) and 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) and POCSO act.On an average eight women are raped and 30 abducted everyday in Uttar Pradesh where more than 100 FIRs of ‘crime against women’ are lodged daily.Amid nationwide protests against Unnao rape case, a review of recent incidents in which women were targeted shows that ‘crime against women’ has gone up sharpy between January 1 and March 31 in UP this year over 2017 and 2016.Data reveals 899 FIRs under rape charges have been lodged in UP till March 31, the DNA lab in Mahanagar set up to handle exhibits of sexual offences received close to 280 samples in the same period.

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