Minor's rape: Accused left victim for dead, say police

New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) The man who brutally tortured and raped a five-year-old girl here had fled to his hometown in Bihar thinking that the victim was dead, police said Saturday, adding that he was being brought to Delhi.

Manoj Kumar, 22, was arrested from his in-laws house in Bharthua village in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district late Friday by a team of Delhi Police and Bihar Police, said Delhi's Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Prabhakar.

"We have got Manoj's transit and he is being brought to Delhi for interrogation. An initial interrogation of the accused and Medico Legal Case (MLC) report shows that he left the girl thinking her dead. She was locked in the room for over 40 hours," said Prabhakar.

Describing the chronology of the incident, Prabhakar said: "Manoj left Delhi April 15 at 8:30 p.m. by Swatranta Senani Express and reached his in-laws house in Bihar April 17, from where he was arrested Friday."

"Manoj has two brothers and four sisters, who live in Bihar. He had come to Delhi with his father 15 years ago and had been living here since then," he said.

"His father runs a juice shop in Old Seelampur area in east Delhi while Manoj was employed as a causal worker in a garment factory," he said.

The girl was abducted April 15 and kept hostage for two days without food and water in a room in which the attacker lived, on the ground floor of the building in east Delhi's Gandhi Nagar. The victim's family stayed in the same building, police said.

The girl, who was repeatedly raped, was rescued when a neighbour heard her screams and informed her family, who broke down the door of the room in which she had been held hostage and assaulted.