A terrifying incident was recently reported in the village of Khalapur where the death of an eight-year-old girl shook the locals. As per preliminary investigations, the death was suspected to be due to an animal attack, however, thorough reports released by the police confirmed that the same was a murder. The accused related to the case, identified as an 18-year-old boy, Ajay Vijay Chavan, is under police’s radar.
Police was informed about the incident on December 18, 2022, in Khalapur taluka’s Kargaon village where a local cricket tournament and the gram panchayat were held. Victim’s father was selling some snacks near the ground and had sent the girl to purchase a few items. Hours later, when the girl did not return, the father and other people filed a case with the police who began the search operation and found her body in a bushy area. Preliminary reports suspected an animal attack enroute her house, however, the post-mortem report from JJ Hospital confirmed the death to be a murder as marks of strangulation were noticed on the body.
Confirmation regarding this was given by Raigad superintendent of police, Somnath Gharge, who further added tha the area was not covered by CCTV cameras and hence no information was received in the investigation initially. However, a team of over 100 staff members including 20 police inspectors from various police stations were involved in investigating the case.
Quoting the police, Hindustan Times, reported, “We believed that the accused could be a local since whoever killed her certainly knew this particular route. There were around 45 families that resided in the village, and we started doing a background check of each one and interrogating them. Then we started focusing on the people who said that they saw the girl that day, while she was going to the shop and zeroed in on the boy who saw her last. The boy kept changing his statement and seemed to be scared. During interrogation, he confessed to the crime.”
Chavan used to stay with his aunt in the village and was dropped out of the school. His parents stayed in Karad village. Upon interrogation the police found that that the accused was living in the village since COVID-19 lockdown and had an eye on the victim. He followed him one day and tried to molest her and upon seeking help and threatening to report complaint, he strangulated and smashed her face with a rock.
As of now, Chavan is in police custody until December 31, 2022.
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