The crime that enraged Puducherry Premium

Puducherry child rape: A nine-year-old child, who had gone out to play, went missing from her neighbourhood in the Union Territory. Three days later, her body was found in a drain. Ground Zero reports on the crime that brought the residents of the city to the streets, and the agony of the family who knew the accused

Trigger warning: the following article has references to rape. Please avoid reading if you feel distressed by the subject

By all accounts, Nithya (name changed to protect identity), 9, was a cheerful child. She studied at a primary school in Puducherry, a coastal city in the Union Territory of the same name, bordering Tamil Nadu in the south. Her father says she enjoyed playing sports and the freedom of walking or cycling along the narrow lanes of her neighbourhood, located at one end of Beach Road, where houses are densely packed together. She would buy biscuits or sweets from small shops. Like many children her age, she was curious.

On March 2, Nithya went out to play. She should have been gone only a short while, but she did not return. Her sister, 11, was the last to see her. Her parents filed a missing complaint.

Two days later, when the police found no leads, Nithya’s parents hit the streets, along with relatives and a group of residents of the neighbourhood, in protest. They staged a blockade on the arterial Mahatma Gandhi Road, demanding that police officials make more of an effort in tracing the child. The protesters dispersed only when the police assured them that they would intensify their search and find the girl soon.

When yet another day passed without any signs of progress in the investigation, the agitation began to snowball. Campaigns seeking justice for the girl began trending on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). From the morning of March 5, cadres of the Opposition parties, including the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Congress, the Left parties, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, and the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, joined the protesters. Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and Home Minister A. Namassivayam, who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), held meetings with senior police officers to review progress in the case.

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The same afternoon, Nithya’s body, with her hands and feet tied, was found in a drain a few metres from her house. The discovery came as a shock to the city. S. Sundhari, a resident of Nithya’s neighbourhood, says, “We have heard that such atrocities happen to girls in different parts of India. But we never thought it would happen to a child in our locality.”