Nine-month-old girl dies as man gags her after rape bid

Warangal: A nine-month-old girl died after a man apparently gagged her following an alleged rape bid here on Wednesday, police said.

The accused, aged around 28, took the baby in the wee hours while she was asleep alongside her parents on the terrace of their house and sexually assaulted her, a senior police officer told PTI. The man, who stays in the same neighbourhood as that of the victim, seems to have gagged her when she started crying, resulting in her death, the officer said. In the meanwhile, the parents of the girl informed the police that their daughter was missing.

The police traced the accused, a labourer, and found the baby with him. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, but was declared "brought dead", the officer said. A case under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 376 (rape), 302 (murder) and the relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was registered against the accused, who was taken into custody and was being questioned, a police official involved in the investigation said. The body of the victim was shifted to a state-run hospital and the exact cause of her death and whether she was sexually assaulted or not would be known after an autopsy, he added.

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