A day after a 10-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by an unidentified man in Andhra Pradesh, the police have cracked the case and arrested the accused on Thursday with the help of a ‘biryani’ packet.
The accused has been identified as 35-year-old Annam Venkateswara Rao, a resident of Gandhi Nagar, who works as a waiter at a hotel in Nuzvid, a town in Krishna district.
On Thursday, the victim was found sexually assaulted and dumped in a semi-conscious state with serious injuries. It was the police patrol team near the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) campus in Nuzvid, who heard her crying and rescued her. After rushing the girl to the hospital, police began their investigation to arrest the perpetrator.
While the police initially accessed the CCTV footage of the abduction near the IIIT campus, where Rao was seen taking the girl on his cycle, they couldn’t identify him due to the poor quality of the visuals. However, a biryani packet helped them in tracing the accused.
According to Nuzvid Deputy Superintendent of Police B Srinivasulu, they zeroed in on the accused by tracing a biryani packet he had left behind at the scene of the crime. The accused had purchased biryani from a restaurant on his way home, the DSP said at a press meet on Saturday.
However, seeing the girl waiting alone at a bus stop for her father, the bicycle-borne man offered a lift, saying he would help her in looking for him. He had then taken the girl to an isolated place and allegedly raped her. Based on the biryani packet found there, the police visited the restaurant and examined the CCTV footage, which led them to the accused.
The girl is undergoing treatment at a government hospital and is stable, the police said.