Chennai shocker: 3-year-old girl sexually assaulted, killed; body found in dump yard

Chennai: In a gruesome incident, the body of a three-year-old girl was found in a garbage yard on Tiruvottiyur-Manali Road on Sunday.

Deccan Chronicle reported that the girl's mouth was stuffed with rags.

According to police, the body showed signs of torture and sexual assault. 

The girl went missing from her house in the 26th Block of Tsunami Quarters in Ennore on Saturday evening. 

As per father of the victim, Palani, his daughter did not return home after playing with some children who lived nearby. After futile efforts of finding her for hours, her parents filed a complaint at the Ennore police station.

On Sunday morning, municipal workers found a  girl's body while unloading garbage at the dump yard and apprised the Tiruvottiyur police of the same.

The body was later brought to a government hospital and identified as the missing three-year-old.

The Hindu said that as per police, the preliminary probe revealed that the child could have been suffocated to death by smothering. 

“There were injury marks in her genitalia,” The New Indian Express quoted another police officer as saying.

Meanwhile, The Times of India reported that neighbours suspect that the culprit may be someone from the neighbourhood.