An e-rickshaw driver has been arrested for allegedly raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl whose body was found in a bushy area near Loha Bridge in New Town's Action Area I on Friday morning.
Police said the accused, Soumitra Roy, 26, had promised to drop the girl home.
"Soumitra Roy was tracked down through CCTV footage, which showed the victim in his vehicle hours before her body was found," said an officer of the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate.
The victim's parents told the family that she had left home on Thursday night after being scolded by her mother for fighting with her sister.
The police said CCTV footage showed the teenager boarding the e-rickshaw from Jagatpur in Baguiti around 11.30pm on Thursday.
The girl was first seen sitting on the passenger seat of the e-rickshaw. In a later footage, she was seen sitting beside the driver.
“We identified the man from the footage and detained him from the New Town police camp area on Saturday night. He failed to give satisfactory answers to our questions. Later, he confessed to the crime,” said Manav Singla, deputy commissioner, New Town, Bidhannagar commissionerate.
"Roy said the girl had boarded his e-rickshaw saying she wanted to be dropped home. He said that she initially sat on the rear seat. But when other passengers started boarding, he asked her to sit beside him," said an officer of New Town police station involved in the probe.
"But Roy did not drop her home. After the other passengers got off the vehicle, Roy took the teenager to various locations across New Town. He finally took her to a deserted location near Loha Bridge, where she was raped and murdered."
Roy had initially denied any link with the crime, the officer said. But when cops asked him about some scratch marks on his face, he allegedly failed to give a satisfactory reply.
The police suspect the victim scratched his face when she tried to resist him.
Roy, originally from Ranaghat in Nadia, had been staying in a rented accommodation in New Town’s Adarsha Pally.
He was produced before the Barasat court on Sunday and remanded in police custody for 10 days.
"We are trying to find out whether anyone else was involved in the crime," an officer said.