3-year-old girl raped, murdered, buried by 32-year-old uncle

Belagavi, Sept 23: A two-and-a-half year old girl was brutally raped, murdered and buried by her uncle, in Kurubagodi village of Raibag taluk of Belagavi district on Thursday. Harugeri police on Friday arrested the victim’s uncle Uddappa Ramappa Ganiger (32), who confessed to the crime.

Superintended of Police BR Ravikanthe Gowda said Ganiger lured the girl from her home, promising her chocolates, then took her to a sugarcane field and raped her. When the child began to cry, he squeezed her neck and killed her, then dug a pit in the same field and buried the top part of her body.

When their daughter failed to return home, her worried parents searched for her and as night fell, registered a missing complaint at Harugeri police station.

As police began investigations, local shopkeepers informed cops that they had seen the girl with Ganiger, who was buying her chocolates. Police immediately took him into custody, and he confessed and directed them to the sugarcane field belonging to Bhimappa Naganur.

Police and villagers rushed to the field and saw a horrifying scene -- the head and half the body of the girl was buried in the earth, her private parts bleeding.

Police booked a case under Sections 376, 366 (A), 302 and 201 and 4, 8 and 12 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The girl's body was handed over to her parents after a postmortem at Belagavi Institute of Medical Sciences on Friday evening.

This is the second rape of a minor within a fortnight, and the 48th in the past six months. The brutal incidents have left the district in shock and raised the hackles of the public. On September 8, a 28-month-old girl was raped by a 21-year-old youth in a school at Vannur village in Bailhongal taluk of Belagavi. After the crime, the accused had tried to bury her alive.

‘Hang him’

Laxman, the girl's father, demanded that the accused be immediately hanged. "He carried my daughter on his shoulder after she returned from school, and took her to buy chocolates. We searched for her till night. Since many people had seen him with her in the evening, it helped police," said the distressed father.

Mother Sudha could not believe that her brother could commit such a heinous crime. "Being an uncle, one can't imagine the brutality he committed on my daughter. Her mouth and private parts were filled with mud. We don't know why he did it," she wept.

Civil society protests, demands justice

When Uddappa Ganiger was brought to Belagavi district government hospital on Friday, hundreds of activists belonging to women's organizations, and Hindu, Muslim and Kannada organizations gathered at the hospital premises and urged the police to hand him over to them.

The September 8 rape had also led to women's organizations staging a protest and demanding stringent action against the accused.

Seema Sayyad, district president of Human Rights Organization, blamed the police for protecting notorious criminals. "Such criminals should be punished in public by women," she said.

"I am ready to go to jail for punishing the culprit. There is need for immediate punishment for rapists through fast track courts. Our legal system protects such criminals for years, keeps them in jail and feeds them well. We will start an agitation tomorrow for immediate punishment to the accused," Ayesha Sanadi, state president of Human Rights Organization, said.

Social worker and human rights activist Ashwini Lengade questioned the Beti Bachao campaign, when so many atrocities are being committed against women. Women in the country require safety, she said. Sensing public anger, police shifted Ganiger to another hospital for a medical test.