Chennai, Dec 18 A 44-year-old man was arrested in Coimbatore for killing a Class 10 student after sexually assaulting and dumping her body near a wasteyard.
The accused, Muthukumar, is a construction worker and was known to the 14-year-old victim's family.
The girl's mother lodged a complaint with the East Ramanathapuram all-women police station on December 13, stating that her daughter was missing since December 11.
The woman, who is separated from her husband for the past eight years, was living with her mother and two daughters aged 17 and 14.
The woman in her complaint said that after she, her mother and her elder daughter went to work, her younger daughter was alone at home and when she returned home by 4 p.m., the girl was missing and her cellphone was switched off.
When the police launched an investigation on Thursday, they found the decomposed body of the girl with her hands and feet tied and a rope around her neck.
The investigation revealed that, Muthukumar, who had borrowed 2.5 sovereigns of gold from the teen's mother, had reportedly called the girl to his house under the pretext of returning the gold.
He then sexually assaulted her and killed her.
Ramanathapuram all-women police, in a statement, said that Muthukumar later entered the girl's house, stole 1.75 sovereigns of gold and decamped with it.
According to the Deputy Commission of Police, E.S. Uma, he confessed the crime and said that he had broke into the house and stole 1.75 sovereigns of gold to convince the mother that the victim took the gold and eloped with someone.
Muthukumar was produced before the Judicial magistrate court and remanded to custody.
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