Tamil Nadu: 5-year-old boy killed for resisting sex assault bid in Kancheepuram

CHENNAI: A five-year-old boy was killed by a 34-year-old man whose sex assault attempt he had resisted.
The crime took place Sunday night at the Kancheepuram residence of the accused, M Rajesh, 34, who works as a surveyor in the district's land survey division.
After the boy succumbed during treatment at a hospital on Monday, his sister told cops what had happened, and the accused was arrested from his house.He was booked under BNS for aggravated sexual assault and murder and remanded in judicial custody.
Police said the accused and his wife had separated some years ago. He frequently visited a pushcart eatery run by the child's mother and grandmother in the locality. Over a period, he developed a relationship with the child's mother - a divorcee and mother of two kids aged nine and five - and would often visit her house while the children were in school. He would also take her children to his house and play with them.
On Sunday, he took the siblings to his house. While the girl was playing, the accused took the boy to another room and tried to sexually assault him. The boy resisted the bid and began crying. Enraged, the accused thrashed the kid and pushed him to the ground.
The girl, on hearing her brother's cries, rushed to the room to check on him and found the boy lying on the floor. Panicked, the accused dropped both the children at their house and fled.
The girl reported the matter to her mother, who initially refused to believe the theory.
Around 1.30am on Monday, the boy woke up and began vomiting. He was rushed to a govt hospital where he died a few hours later.
Doctors found external injuries on the child’s body and informed police, following which a case was registered and the body sent to Kancheepuram govt hospital for postmortem. During the inquiry, his sister narrated the sequence of events to police and said she saw the accused physically assaulting her brother.