Cab driver arrested after 11-year-old girl raped and killed

An 11-year-old girl was abducted from a footpath in south Delhi, sexually assaulted, and murdered in a brutal crime that has shocked the city. The alleged perpetrator, a 29-year-old cab driver, was arrested within six hours following a major police operation, but the case took a dramatic turn when he was shot while attempting to escape custody.

The incident occurred in the early hours of Monday, June 22. The victim was sleeping beside her parents, who are daily-wage laborers, on a pavement near the Chattarpur metro station in the Mehrauli area. Police said the accused, identified as Bashu Kumar Singh, a native of Bihar, had parked his white hatchback near the family before allegedly abducting the girl around 4:15 a.m.

Her father awoke moments later to see the vehicle speeding away and gave chase, but could not stop it. A police control room call was made at 4:58 a.m., triggering an immediate response. Authorities launched a massive manhunt involving nearly 20 police teams, who scanned footage from approximately 200 CCTV cameras and utilized technical surveillance and GPS data from ride-hailing aggregators.

The investigation traced Singh's movements to Vikaspuri in west Delhi,...