In a horrific incident, an 8-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped and killed by three of her school seniors in Nandyala district of Andhra Pradesh.
The boys—two of them aged 15 and one 12—have been detained while the police are still searching for the girl’s body.
"They (boys) molested and pushed her into the canal. It happened on Sunday at around 5 pm. They were all from Mucchumarri village and everybody knew each other," Nandyal district superintendent of police K. Raghuveera Reddy told news agency PTI.
The girl, a Class 3 student, went missing on Sunday morning and the police launched a search for her based on a complaint by her parents. According to reports, a sniffer dog led the investigators to the three boys.
Confessing to the crime, the accused told the police that they found the girl playing in a park. They joined her and took her to a secluded place before taking turns to rape her, reported NDTV.
The boys also claimed that they threw her body to the nearby canal.
SP Reddy, however, said that it cannot be ascertained whether the girl was raped until her body is found.
Meanwhile, a National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team arrived in Nandyala on Thursday to help police in the search operation.
