Ghaziabad: A 34-year-old cabbie has been arrested for allegedly raping and murdering the five-year-old daughter of the owner of the house where he stayed on rent for the past one year in Khoda Colony in Ghaziabad.Police said Deepak Singh was heavily drunk and watching porn on TV when the girl walked into his room around 8pm on August 2. He allegedly raped her and throttled her to death when she tried to raise an alarm.Deepak, police said, stuffed the body in a sack and kept it near the stairs of the house amid other discarded items for a few hours. As neighbours went off to sleep later in the night, he allegedly took the body to the terrace of an opposite building and kept it there. The building is owned by the girl’s uncle.But before dumping the body in one corner of the terrace, Deepak had taken part in the search that was launched for the girl when she did not return home around 9pm on August 2. The decomposed body was found two days later by her aunt, who informed the girl’s father, a labourer with a private firm in Noida.An autopsy has confirmed “sexual assault” on the girl but not mentioned anything about rape, police sources said. A doctor in a three-member panel that conducted the autopsy had earlier said the body was decomposed and it made it difficult to ascertain the injury marks.Police have, however, charged Deepak with rape and under relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act.The girl’s father said Deepak had been staying on rent for the past one year with his wife and one-year-old son. “My daughter would go to his room to play with his son. We never thought he would do such a thing,” the father said. He demanded capital punishment for Deepak.On August 2, when the girl had gone to Deepak’s room, his wife and son had left for his in-laws’ place in Mainpuri. The next day, the cabbie left his room without informing anybody, which aroused suspicion among the girl’s relatives that he could be involved in her disappearance. After the body was found on August 4, an FIR was registered against Deepak, who remained untraceable.Sources said some of Deepak’s friends in Khoda had informed the cabbie that he had been named in an FIR and the police were looking for him. He fled to Bulandshahr, where he had worked earlier, but did not go to his in-laws’ place in Mainpuri though it was his son’s birthday on August 5. Deepak was arrested around 5am on Tuesday from Khoda area, based on a tip-off.The girl’s relatives beat him up in the presence of SSP Vaibhav Krishna when he was brought to the Police Lines for a news conference on Tuesday afternoon. Krishna said he would urge the court to fast track the case and appeal for maximum punishment. The officer also ordered an internal inquiry into the family’s allegation that the police had delayed in getting an autopsy done.Deepak’s neighbours in Khoda said he would often come home drunk and fight with his wife. “He was an alcoholic and would drink every day, but he kept to himself. We never saw him fighting with any outsider or creating a ruckus in the neighbourhood. He was with us when we searched for the girl. We began suspecting his role when he left his room without informing anybody,” said a neighbour.

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