A nine-year-old Nepali girl has been murdered at Shakarpur in New Delhi, India.

The local police in the Indian capital said Laxmi Chandara, who hailed from Budhiganga Village in Bajura district, was murdered after a rape attempt on Friday.

Laxmi had been living with her parents in a building run as a paying guest (PG) facility for the past nine months. Her father Dev Chandara and mother Laxmi worked for the PG facility operated by Basim Ahamad, better known as Sonu, a man from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

On Friday, when Dev returned from his duty, he found his daughter lying on the bed. It was when he tried to wake her up that he found her unconscious. Fearing the worst, he called his wife, who was working on the third floor of the building. The couple, accompanied by Sonu and other neighbours, rushed Laxmi to a nursing home, where doctors pronounced her dead on arrival.

As Laxmi’s death was ‘unnatural’, police were called in for an investigation.

Dev, Sonu and a third person were taken to Shakarpur Police Station for questioning. The CCTV footage from the building was also reviewed. Soon, police concluded that it was Sonu who had taken the little girl’s life.

Police said Sonu admitted to the crime during interrogation. He has been charged with the attempted rape and murder of the nine-year-old.“There won’t be any delay in the legal process. All necessary processes including medical tests have already been conducted. We are waiting for the postmortem and are in contact with the victim’s family,” Inspector Rajanikant at the Shakarpur Police Station said. Laxmi’s parents are shocked that their employer committed such a heinous crime. 

“We still cannot believe that Sonu committed the crime? We thought he was a decent person. He would sometimes come to our room to smoke,” Laxmi’s father Dev told the Post. Dev had come to India for the first time in 1996 in search of work. After working in various cities, he arrived in New Delhi four years ago. 

“It was difficult to manage food and clothes in the hills. So, we came here to earn a living,” he said. According to him, although Laxmi was just nine years old, she was a responsible member of the family. “She looked after her 11-month-old sister and helped her mother in the kitchen. She would help her mother make chapatis for the family,” he said.

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