Mapusa: Mapusa police on Wednesday arrested a 28-year-old native of Dharwad, Karnataka, for the rape of the four-year-old girl at Mapusa, cracking the case within 72 hours of the crime being reported.SP Rahul Gupta said the investigation had begun as a blind case, as the child’s father, despite searching for her, had not reported her missing to the police. The first challenge was to establish the child’s identity and trace her parents after police received information about the assault around 10:15 pm on Sunday.The girl was spotted by motorcycle pilots at a stand near Lohia Garden, coming out of an abandoned building in tears and in distress.“We first managed to trace the father, who confirmed the toddler to be his child. After enquiries, we learnt that the father had got into an argument on the day of the crime. We established the identities of all those present during this tiff. We then got hold of CCTV footage and identified the accused through enquiries with other workers. It was corroborated that the girl was also present during the argument, along with the father and the accused. We learnt that the accused did not have a cellphone and therefore no digital footprint to identify him,” Gupta said.The only leads available to investigators were that the accused was from Dharwad and spoke Kannada. Police deployed several teams to trace him, eventually making a breakthrough on Wednesday when a policeman spotted him in Panaji.Gupta said the accused told police that he had walked from Mapusa to Panaji on Sunday night after committing the crime. He had been staying in Goa for the past six to eight months.“The forensic team seized the child’s dress, the accused’s bag, among other items, from the crime scene. The accused has identified the bag as his and also confessed to the crime,” Gupta said.He said police would now focus on completing the investigation at the earliest and filing the chargesheet as soon as possible.While CCTV footage played an important role in cracking the case, Gupta stressed the need for a wider camera surveillance network in the Mapusa area. He said police had held discussions with the Mapusa market association, which had agreed to install more CCTV cameras in the busy area.Gupta said the child’s condition is stable and that police were interacting with her through counsellors.The 72-hour operation was led by Mapusa PI Anant Gaonkar.Following his arrest, the accused was taken to the district hospital for a mandatory medical examination before being produced before the Mapusa judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) court for remand proceedings.
