Mumbai: Two days after the body of a nine-year-old girl was found in a Juhu drain, she was cremated at a Juhu crematorium, where citizens turned up in huge numbers. Over 3,500 people gathered outside the crematorium to console the family, who lost the young girl at the hands of an ex-convict paedophile, Devendra Vadivel aka Gundappa (35) on Thursday evening.
The anguished locals of Nehru Nagar area and neighbouring slums were evidently angry over the failure of police to avert such incidents, despite regular night patrols in the area.
A local, requesting anonymity, said, “Police have always behaved badly with us. They never allowed us to sit out of our houses after 10.30 pm. Medical stores and milk centres are shut after dark, but stalls serving Chinese food and liquor shops are allowed at night. Why do police come soft on the criminals and target the locals?”
While the mother of the nine-year-old had refused to claim her daughter’s body from the morgue of the civic-run Cooper Hospital, she was asked by the police and doctors to claim it. The deceased’s mother said, “My daughter was raped and brutally murdered for no fault of her. The accused, Gundappa, dumped her body in a gutter and left her to rot.
She died a ghastly death. I don’t want to claim her body until the culprit is handed the harsher punishment.” After the incident, the anguished locals of Nehru Nagar continued to protest against the horrible incident. They blocked the roads and hurled anti-police slogans near the Juhu police station.
As many as 300 people protested on Monday evening also, seeking maximum punishment to Gundappa and suspension of police detection team who failed to protect the Nehru Nagar residents. A senior police inspector of Juhu police station said, “The accused has been sent to police custody till April 15. We are doing a thorough probe. The protests are a hurdle in the probe, as half of our efforts are put in to manage the angry crowd.”
