"Papa mujhe bacha lo" (Father, save me) - these were the last words of a 10-year-old girl who was kidnapped in her sleep from a pavement in South Delhi. Hearing the screams, the girl's father ran after the white car, but by then the accused had already fled with the child. The girl was raped and strangled by the cab driver.
A 10-year-old girl was sleeping on a pavement in South Delhi along with her parents and three siblings - two sisters and a brother - on Monday night when a cab driver pulled over. Bablu, who drives an app-based cab, was heavily intoxicated, said the police, and was waiting to pick up a ride when he noticed the little girl sleeping.
The girl's screams woke up her father, who ran after the commercial vehicle but it was all in vain.
The father dialed the police control room (PCR) and that led to the beginning of a four-hour-long search operation involving scanning CCTV footage and tracking the vehicle's movement.
While the vehicle was visible in the CCTV footage, its registration number could not be seen. A thorough review of the footage revealed that the vehicle had been parked at the location for approximately one hour. The white hatchback arrived around 4 am, and the girl was kidnapped nearly an hour later, at around 5 am.
The police requested trip details for that specific area from ride-hailing apps.
Meanwhile, the police examined other CCTV cameras along the route and identified the vehicle.
Using GPS and the accused's mobile location, the police traced the car to the Vikaspuri area in West Delhi.
During interrogation, the accused Bablu confessed to killing the girl. Bablu revealed that after kidnapping the girl, he took her about 20 kilometers away to the Gurugram-Faridabad Road. He then parked the vehicle in a secluded area, took the girl into the woods, raped her and strangled her using a scarf.
He then left the body at the crime scene.
For Bablu, a native of Bihar, it was business as usual. After killing the girl, he picked up a ride from Gurugram to Vikaspuri in West Delhi from where he was arrested in the morning.
"He had picked up and dropped a passenger after the crime and appeared to be behaving normally, showing no indication of what he had done," a police source said, reported the news agency PTI.
According to the police, the accused, who already has five cases of assault and fighting registered against him in Bihar, was arrested within four hours.
The accused has a wife and children in Bihar.
On Tuesday, when the police were taking Bablu to the crime scene, he attempted to escape from police custody. He was shot in the leg during a police encounter.
The police are set to issue notices to app-based taxi service providers regarding how a man with a criminal background was hired.
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