In a chilling incident, a man allegedly sexually raped and murdered a nine-year-old girl residing in his neighbourhood in Maharashtra's Pune district, police said on Wednesday.

The accused has been identified as Sahil Khaire, a 25-year-old daily wage worker. The officials said that the incident took place on Tuesday afternoon at Pimpalwadi village in Junnar tehsil. The accused has been taken into custody.

According to Pune Rural Superintendent of Police Sandip Singh Gill, the accused and the victim lived in the same neighbourhood and knew each other. "Both the accused and victim lived in the same neighbourhood and belong to the same community," he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, the accused went to the girl when her parents were not home. While she was watching television, he lured her away on the pretext of offering her a guava.

The accused allegedly took the girl to a nearby farm, where he raped her and later strangled her, Gill said. When the girl's family couldn't find her till the evening, a search was started. Failing to find her, the family lodged a missing person complaint with the police.

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The police launched a search operation. What's more chilling was that the accused himself joined the search efforts of villagers.

The police started scanning CCTV. In one of the footages, the police spotted a suspicious person travelling on a bicycle.

Upon questioning, Khaire confessed to the crime. The police further investigated him for the girl's whereabouts, to which he provided the information and the girl's body was subsequently recovered from beneath a tree near a stream.

"During the probe and analysis of the CCTV footage of the area, it was found that the girl was with the accused. Subsequently, the accused was detained. During interrogation, he confessed and showed us the (crime) spot in the sugarcane field," the official said.

The police sent the body for post-mortem and a forensic team visited the crime scene and collected evidence.

"A case has been registered, and the accused has been taken into custody. Further investigation is underway," Gill added.

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Deputy CM Sunetra Pawar seeks fast-track trial

Reacting to the incident, Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar described the incident as unfortunate. She also called SP Gill and directed him to conduct a transparent probe.

She also said that she would make a special request to CM Devendra Fadnavis to take the matter to a fast-track court to ensure swift justice and strict punishment.