Security guard arrested for sexual assault, murder of minor girl

A day after the body of a minor girl was recovered from the staircase of a residential building in Jorabagan area of the city, the police arrested a security guard on charges of having sexually assaulted and murdered her, a senior police officer said.

The man in his mid-40s, who works as a security guard of a building in the area, was booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

"He was arrested on the basis of scientific evidence gathered by the forensic team from the staircase from where the body of the nine-year-old girl was recovered," the police officer said.

Sleuths of Kolkata Police had picked up the man, a resident of Jharkhand, on Thursday night and after a night- long grilling he admitted to his crime, the officer said.

The accused used to watch child pornography on his smartphone, the police found out.

"He was fully drunk on that evening when he allured the girl with chocolates, food and sexually abused her. He then strangled her to death. To ensure that she was dead, the man slit her throat with a knife," the officer said.

The sleuths had spotted a couple of teeth and a few hair strands on the staircase where the girl's body was found.

A blood-stained knife, suspected to be the murder weapon, was found from a drain, just beside the multi-storey building, the senior officer said.

The victim, a resident of Sovabazar in the same police station area, was visiting her maternal uncle's residence in Jorabagan in the northern part of the city.

The family had approached the police when the girl went missing on Wednesday evening.