A 17-year-old raped a five-year-old girl, threw her into a well to drown her, and strangled her six-year-old cousin in Chhattisgarh’s Koriya district in India because they would have identified him. Despite her injuries, the girl kept herself afloat in the well long enough for someone to hear her cries for help.

Police were horrified to see her injuries and the bites that covered her body. On the basis of her statement, the accused was arrested under the Pocso Act.

The two children were playing in the fields when the accused, who is from a neighbouring village, came along and sought help in plucking leaves for a puja. Since they knew him, they went along.

He took them to a patch of forest about two-and-a-half km away. Then, before the girl’s horrified eyes, he strangled the boy and pushed his body into the bushes. As the girl stood frozen in terror, he dragged her deeper into the forest, tortured and raped her. Then he picked her up and threw her into a deep well, believing she would drown. But the child could swim and kept shouting for help while managing to stay afloat. Luckily, a passerby heard her and helped her out of the well with the aid of other villagers. Police were informed and the girl bravely narrated her ordeal and named the rapist. The boy’s body was recovered while the girl was taken to a hospital. The juvenile has confessed to the crime, say police.