An eight-year-old girl, the daughter of migrant labourers from Bihar, was allegedly abducted, sexually assaulted and abandoned in a paddy field in Aluva near Kochi on Thursday, following which the police nabbed the suspect within a few hours.
The child, who suffered injuries to her private parts in the sexual assault and underwent surgery, is in stable condition presently, the police said.
Launching an investigation soon after being informed of the incident, the police caught the suspect, Krystal Raj (27), several hours after the incident, from under the Marthanda Verma bridge near Aluva in Ernakulam district where he was hiding and drinking alcohol.
The latest incident raises questions about the safety of women and children in the state, as it comes after a similar one in the last week of July, when a five-year-old girl, whose parents were also migrant workers from Bihar, was abducted, brutally raped and killed.
Her body was found abandoned amid garbage in a marshy area behind the Aluva fish market, near the Periyar River.
The police had arrested a person from Bihar -- 28-year-old Asafak Alam -- who had confessed to the crime which had shocked the conscience of the state.
In the latest incident, the man allegedly abducted the eight-year-old girl from outside her home in Aluva while she was sleeping and then sexually assaulted her.
Amidst mounting criticism of the police for not preventing a repeat of the incident, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) caught the suspect.
On seeing the officers, the suspect attempted to escape by jumping into the nearby river under the bridge and swimming away, but was caught with the help of local residents and pulled out of the water, the police said.
He is presently in police custody and being interrogated by the SIT, the police said and added that Raj, who hails from Neyyattinkara in Thiruvananthapuram district, is a suspect in several criminal cases.
The man was caught after a district-wide dragnet was cast in the rural area of Ernakulam, especially around Aluva.
Even as the police launched the manhunt to find the suspect, both the Congress-led United Democratic Front opposition and the Bharatiya Janata Party criticised the law and order agency and the state government over the incident.
Both parties alleged that Kerala was not safe for women and children, as this was the second such crime in the space of just over one month in the same area.
While the UDF demanded that the government relinquish power if it cannot protect women and children in the state, the BJP wanted Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to give up the Home portfolio that he holds.
Leader of Opposition in the assembly VD Satheesan said that the latest incident occurred just one-and-a-half km away from the Aluva Palace where CM Vijayan was staying under heavy police protection.
"It is a failure of policing. The police have become mere spectators," he alleged.
He also alleged that such incidents are taking place often in Kerala, which was becoming a state where an increasing number of crimes is being committed against women and children.
Speaking along similar lines, BJP state president K Surendran said it was embarrassing that this happened in Kerala and alleged that even small children were not safe in the state.
Demanding that Vijayan give up the Home portfolio, Surendran, in a statement, said that daughters were not safe even in their homes -- referring to the fact that the victim in today's case was abducted from her house.
He said while the Left government invites migrant labourers with much fanfare and calls them guests, it is not protecting their children.
"God's own country has become the land of criminals," he alleged and claimed that the southern state was competing with Rajasthan -- ruled by the Congress -- in terms of rape and sexual assaults.
The state government, meanwhile, assured the victim and her family of all possible help and promised strict action against the culprit.
The government also promised to provide financial assistance of Rs one lakh to the girl from the Women and Child Development department's relief fund, besides ensuring free treatment for her at the Ernakulam Medical College.
This child did not suffer the same fate as the five-year-old victim of the earlier incident who was killed, as one of the local residents of the area saw her being taken away by the suspect at around 2.15 am. He alerted the neighbours and they all went in search of the girl.
The local resident told a TV channel that he saw the suspect walking along with the girl near his house at around 2.15 am.
"I woke up to go to the toilet and, as it was raining, I looked outside to see how heavy the rain was. That is when I saw the man and the girl walking by. The girl was crying and he was raising his hand at her as if he was going to hit her.
"I woke up some of my neighbours and we went out in the heavy rain looking for her and calling out for her. After some time, we saw her coming out from a nearby paddy field and she came towards us," he said.
One of the men of the local search party was an auto driver who had ferried the victim to school at times and he recognised her. All of them together took her home, the eyewitness said.
"On reaching her home, we found that the door was bolted from outside and only after we knocked on it did her mother wake up and realise what had happened," he said.
The victim was admitted to the Government Medical College Hospital in Kalamassery by the locals, the police said.
