Staring at 178 men's private parts helps crack case

Cops solve 6-year-old's rape and murder by asking men in Bhayander to strip, to check them for injuries
Imagine a policeman walking into your house in the dead of night and asking male adults to pull down their pants, and then taking a hard look at their private parts.

ILLUSTRATION/SATISH ACHARYA
Nah, no act of queer voyeurism this. Instead, this is what policemen in Bhayander had to go through on Wednesday during a nocturnal combing operation in the locality.
It was part of an investigation pertaining to a rape and murder case of a six-year-old girl. The victim's body was found in an open drain. The autopsy confirmed that she was raped before being murdered.
A police team underwent a five-hour-long exercise of examining genitals of 178 men in over 200 houses. The police said this case could be linked to the disappearance of several minor girls reported missing from Kurla.
One arrested
The exercise has borne fruit. The policemen zeroed in on a suspect, Prakash Kevat (24), in whose house the girl's undergarments were found.
The team comprised over 100 policemen, including staff from the Bhayander police station and State Reserve Police Force personnel from Thane (Rural) division.
"This was done to check if any man had sustained injuries like a scratch from a nail, for instance, around his private parts," said Police Inspector AB Nimbalkar.
"Thanks to the exercise, we cracked the case within 24 hours of the crime," said a senior officer.
Locked house
"We kept an eye on the only house we found locked in the area," said Nimbalkar. "When it was opened the next day, we found the victim's missing undergarments and also spotted bloodstains there."
Kevat, who was arrested from his workplace in Vasai, has confessed to the crime, the police said.
"Kevat said he found the victim loitering outside her house and took her to his house and assaulted her sexually," said Nimbalkar. "Fearing that she would tell on him, he said he killed her."
Kevat has been remanded in police custody till June 23.

Source Midday, June 18,2010