Aluva: The Special Investigation Team probing the Aluva child murder case has found that the accused Asfaq Alam is a POSCO case accused in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur. He was booked for attempting to molest a ten-year-old girl in 2018. 

“Ghazipur police in Uttar Pradesh had registered a case against him. Asfaq was jailed for a month. But he went absconding after obtaining bail in the case,” Aluva SP Vivek Kumar told media on Tuesday.

With this, the criminal background of the accused has been confirmed.

The SIT came across his criminal history while conducting his background check, he said.

Police sources said they were trying to find out whether Alam, a Bihar native, had been involved in any other crimes before reaching Kerala as a migrant worker.

Meanwhile, the SIT completed the Test Identification Parade of the accused on Tuesday morning. Three witnesses who spotted the accused with the five-year-old girl in Aluva identified him. A woman who saw the accused and the child on a bus also arrived for the parade.

Thajudeen, a local labourer who had seen Alam going inside the market along with the girl before the committing the crime, told reporters outside that he would give his statement against the accused anywhere to ensure maximum punishment.
He also confirmed that he identified the accused during the parade. "He should get maximum punishment... I saw him that day... I will say this anywhere," he said.

The SIT aims to gather more evidence against the accused to prove the charges and give him the maximum punishment. The probe team will approach the Ernakulam POCSO court seeking seven-day custody of the accused.

At present, Asfaq who is remanded in judicial custody is housed in Aluva sub-jail.

The five-year-old girl was abducted, brutally raped and killed allegedly by Asfaq, a migrant worker from Bihar who lived in the same building as the victim.

The child's family too hails from the same state. Her body was found dumped in a sack in a marshy area behind a local market in the nearby Aluva area here on July 29.

(with PTI inputs)