Police shot and arrested a man suspected of abducting a 10-year-old girl from her home in the middle of the night, officials said.

Yuvraj Tharu, 27, also known as Bishal, of Tilottama Municipality-17 in Rupandehi district, was arrested from a paddy field in Darkhasawa on Saturday night.

Police suspect that Tharu abducted the girl from her home in Darkhasawa on Wednesday night while she was asleep.

The girl was rescued unharmed on Friday night, about 40 hours after her disappearance, from a forest near Kanchhibazar in Tilottama Municipality-10. Police had been searching for Tharu on suspicion of his involvement in the abduction.

The girl was found alone in the forest, police said.

After rescuing her, police deployed around 150 personnel to search for Tharu, according to Nishant Srivastava, deputy superintendent of police at the Area Police Office in Butwal. Tharu was found hiding in a paddy field on Saturday night, he said.

“The person we arrested appears to have an extremely criminal mindset,” Srivastava said. “He had reportedly been harassing women throughout the village, entering homes when he saw women alone, attacking women who were going to bathe and following them.”

According to Janak Shahi, chief of the District Police Office in Rupandehi, police opened fire at around 1am on Sunday after Tharu attacked officers with stones and other objects and repeatedly tried to flee when they attempted to arrest him.

Police fired one round to bring him under control, and the bullet struck his leg, according to a source. He is receiving treatment at Lumbini Provincial Hospital.

“We will issue a statement shortly with further details about the girl’s abduction, Tharu’s arrest and his condition,” Shahi said.

The girl’s family suspects that Tharu abducted her while her grandparents were sleeping outside the house and she was asleep in an inner room with her younger brother.

The family alerted police immediately after the girl’s grandfather went to check on her at around 2am and found that she was missing.

The girl’s parents work as daily-wage labourers.

The girl’s uncle described Tharu as a man with a reputation for erratic and aggressive behaviour in the village.

“He had been troubling women throughout the village,” the uncle said. “Whenever he saw a woman bathing at a village water tap, he would go there, grab her and attack her. Everyone was afraid of him because he had harassed so many people.”

Police said a preliminary investigation indicated that the girl was abducted with the intention of subjecting her to sexual violence.

According to investigators, Tharu had consumed a large amount of alcohol at the time of the abduction. After learning that police were searching for him, he allegedly left the girl in the forest and fled, investigators said.