Nithari horror back: 24-year-old man booked for killing 16 children

By NewsGram Staff Writer

After the gory Nithari case in Noida, Delhi seems to be in a similar loop with a 24-year-old man being arrested for assaulting and murdering a six-year-old girl in Begampur in Northwest Delhi on July 14. The accused has confessed to the killing of 15 other children – both girls and boys – since 2009.

The perpetrator, Ravinder Kumar, was booked on Friday. According to his statement to the police, he decoyed the children with money or chocolates and later on, took them to isolated places, sexually assaulted them, and strangulated them to death. He used to dump the bodies in drains or fields or used to bury them.

The police are on a trail of unearthing similar incidents in Noida, Aligarh, and Badaun in Uttar Pradesh. As of now, the police has cracked upon similar attempts made by the accused in Kanjhawala, Samaipur Badli, Mundka, and Vijay Vihar, and two such cases in Begampur.

The police bumped into Kumar's involvement in the case when they were probing into the case of a 6-year-old girl who was missing. An FIR with charges of abduction was filed with the police. "The body was spotted in the third floor of a building which was under construction. The building was at a distance of 50m from the girl's house," DCP (outer) Vikramjit Singh told Times of India.

The girl was raped and strangled to death. An FIR under IPC sections of rape, murder, sodomy, sexual assault, and destruction of evidence and Section 6 was slammed against the accused.

The police ran into some paper and a driving license belonging to one Sunny. Sunny was immediately interrogated by the police. According to Sunny, his friend Ravinder, his brother, and a third friend assaulted him a few days ago and took away his licence, cash and bike.

On collating the clues, the police got an inkling of Kumar's involvement in both the cases – six-year-old girl abduction case and Sunny's case.

Kumar had been booked in a similar case last year, wherein he assaulted a minor boy in Begampur; however, he was later released on bail, according to a TOI report. Notwithstanding the pressure, he broke down and confessed to killing and assaulting other minors during the police interrogation.

Kumar's crime has rekindled the horror exuded by the Nithari case (2005-2006), where several young girls were assaulted, abducted, and murdered by Surinder Koli – a helper in a businessman's house in Noida. Koli was awarded the death sentence, which was later on commuted to life imprisonment.

According to the police, a special team has been deputed to investigate the case. He has confessed to targeting 15 children and the team will be probing all the said cases, DCP Singh said.