No guard at the gate, no power on the floors: How a 7-year-old's killers went unnoticed

GHAZIABAD: An under-construction mall in Raj Nagar Extension with no guard at its entrance, dark corridors without electricity and a maze-like layout became the focus of a police investigation after a seven-year-old girl was found dead on Friday evening, exposing security lapses at the site.Police said the building's unattended entrance and lack of power on the upper floors allowed two labourers to allegedly lure the child inside on Friday evening and remain unnoticed for hours before leaving the premises.

According to police, Vinay Kumar (18), who often played with the girl and regularly gave her and her brothers chips and toffees, allegedly took her into the mall along with fellow labourer Sahibuddin (22) after offering her chips and a soft drink.

Police alleged that the two raped the girl, after which Vinay repeatedly struck her on the head with an iron rod before the accused dumped her body through an empty shaft into the basement.An autopsy found more than 25 injury marks on her body — 17 on the head — along with two fractures on her left leg.Police said Vinay, from Bettiah in Bihar, and Sahibuddin, from Khagaria, had been working at the mall for two and a half months.

“Vinay used to play with the girl and her brothers, and would give them toffees and chips,” an officer said.CCTV footage pieced together the girl's final hours. “When we scanned CCTV footage, we found that the two accused entered the mall with the girl through the main gate around 7.40pm. A couple of hours later, they came out — without her,” said Dhawal Jaiswal, DCP (city and trans-Hindon).A senior police officer said the sequence of events were calculated and brutal.

“The accused first beat the girl severely and then took turns to rape her. It was Vinay’s decision to kill her afterwards. He picked up an iron rod and struck her head repeatedly. Once they were certain she was dead, both men carried her to a nearby staircase and dropped her body into the basement through a shaft,” the officer added.The girl had gone missing around 7.30pm Friday while playing with her brothers and other children from the slum settlement near the site.

Her family searched the area but failed to find her initially. Her body was eventually found in the basement and police were informed at 1.05am Saturday, following which a team rushed to the mall.It took over an hour of searching before the crime scene itself was located on the third floor.Police said they navigated floors with no electricity. “I suspected the basement wasn’t where the crime happened. The corridors inside were like a maze, and there was no power.

So, I switched on my phone’s torch and started climbing. There was nothing on the first two floors. But on the third, I saw blood near the staircase. I followed the trail to a room where the walls and floor were spattered with bloodstains. That’s where I found her slippers, trousers, and the iron rod, stained red.

It felt like something truly horrific had happened in that room. The bloodstains were everywhere,” ACP Priyashree Pal told TOI.The under-construction mall had no guard at the entrance, which police believe let the accused slip in unnoticed. The lone night guard on duty was stationed near an area where construction material is stored. He told police he heard a child crying “bachao, bachao”, but assumed it was coming from the nearby shanties, and went back to his phone.Police said the two accused had been drinking before the crime. They had known each other since arriving from Bihar and stayed and drank together daily.Both accused were produced in court on Sunday and remanded in judicial custody. Vinay was initially thought to be a minor when he was detained on Saturday, but police later confirmed he was 18.Acting on a complaint from the girl's father, an FIR was registered against the two at Nandgram police station under sections 70(2) (gang rape), 65(2) (rape of a woman under 12 years), 66 (causing death or persistent vegetative state of the victim), 140(1) (kidnapping or abduction), 103(1) (murder) and 3(5) (criminal acts by several persons) of the BNS, along with relevant provisions of the POCSO Act.