Just over a month after a five-year-old migrant girl was abducted, raped and murdered in Aluva, another minor migrant girl, an eight-year-old, was allegedly abducted from her house where she was sleeping with her parents and sexually assaulted at Edayappuram in Keezhmadu panchayat near Aluva early on Thursday morning.

The suspect, identified as Christal Raj, 27, of Neyyantinkara, was arrested by a special squad of the Ernakulam Rural police later in the day. He had attempted to flee the police by jumping into the Periyar river from the Marthanda Varma bridge. However, the police nabbed him.

The Aluva East police have registered a case invoking relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The suspect was a history-sheeter with several cases against him, said the police.

The child, probably saved by the alertness of local residents, remains admitted at the Government Medical College Hospital, Kalamassery.

A search party of local residents found the girl and restored her with her family, who was reportedly not aware that she had been missing for a while. Going by the account of her rescuers, they had to knock the door and windows of the house multiple times before the family woke up and came to know about their daughter’s ordeal.

Addressing the media, District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural) Vivek Kumar said a man named Sukumaran in the neighbourhood had seen the child along with the suspect. He alerted the police and by the time the police arrived, locals had taken her to the hospital. She had injuries to her private parts for which she had undergone a surgery, the officer added.

Mr. Sukumaran said he heard the girl crying and saw her being taken by the suspect around 2.15 a.m. “The man was gesturing like he was about to beat her to stop crying. I then woke up my wife, turned on the lights outside my house and got out with a torch,” he told the media.

He then woke up his neighbours and started searching for the girl with two others amid heavy rain. “We heard the bark of a dog following which we went in that direction and searched. But we could not find her. We were about to stop the search fearing that the suspect may have heard us and may harm the girl. That was when we saw a girl running, and she was bleeding. She was initially scared of us when we asked her to stop. I realised that I know her, having dropped her at school a few times,” said an autorickshaw driver who was part of the search team.

Later in the day, the Government Medical College Hospital issued a medical bulletin stating that the condition of the child was stable. “She remains admitted to the women’s section. She has been examined by a battery of senior doctors from various departments. After initial treatment, she remains under the observation of expert doctors,” the bulletin said.

On July 28, a five-year-old migrant girl was abducted reportedly by a migrant worker in her neighbourhood around 3 p.m. While the accused was nabbed by around 9.30 p.m. the same day, the child could not be traced. Eventually, her body was found near an abandoned spot in the Aluva market the next day. A special squad of the Rural police had filed the chargesheet in the case last week.