Sleeping child kidnapped, raped, killed in Surat

Kidnapped while she was asleep outside her house, a seven-year-old girl was raped and murdered in Surat.Chandani Radhesyham Saroj Paswan, th...

Kidnapped while she was asleep outside her house, a seven-year-old girl was raped and murdered in Surat.

Chandani Radhesyham Saroj Paswan, the daughter of a slum-dweller, was fast asleep along with her uncle on a handcart outside her house in the Ataljinagar slums on Ashwani Kumar Road on Wednesday night, when she was kidnapped. The little girl, whose throat and private parts bore injury marks, had been stabbed to death with a screw-driver.

A case under Sections 378 (rape), 302 (murder) and 366 (kidnapping) of the IPC has been registered against unidentified persons.

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When the family woke up on Thursday morning, they started looking for Chandani. The Paswans soon heard that a girl’s body had been found in a damaged paan larri, about 100 metres from their house. On reaching there, they were shocked to see Chandani’s body in a pool of blood.

Her father Radheshyam Paswan, who sells daana-chana in Varachha, was inconsolable. ‘‘Every night she used to play with me before going to sleep. Last night, she spent more time with me than usual. Who knew it was the last time,’’ he said.

Paswan had been staying in Surat with his brothers Natthuram and Krushnakumar for a decade and had called his wife and two children from UP recently.

Chandani’s mother Umadevi said she did not want to live in the city any longer. ‘‘We won’t live here. We came here to earn, but have lost everything,’’ she said.

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Radheshyam ruled out personal rivalry. ‘‘My family arrived from UP only three months ago. Earlier, I used to go to see them but since business was improving, I decided to get them here,’’ he said.