Traffic on the heavily used Mumbai–Bengaluru highway in Pune district came to a near standstill on Saturday (May 3) as hundreds of locals blocked the route in protest against the rape and murder of a 3.5‑year‑old girl in Nasrapur village of Bhor taluka. The disruption, which began in the Navale Bridge area, triggered massive jams and long queues of vehicles, with visuals circulating on social media showing mile‑long stretches of stranded cars and trucks.

The Pune traffic police had to issue an advisory asking motorists to avoid the Wadgaon Bridge stretch and use alternate routes, underscoring how the local outcry spilled over into a major nationwide transport artery.

Protesters block highway

The protest centred on the alleged rape and murder of the toddler inside a cow shed, for which a 65‑year‑old man has been arrested. The girl’s family and other villagers placed her body on the roadside near Navale Bridge, demanding the harshest possible punishment for the accused. While the sit‑in began as a peaceful demonstration, the mood escalated when demonstrators attempted to close the Mumbai–Bengaluru highway, turning what was meant to be a grief‑ridden protest into a major traffic‑choking event.

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Authorities later forcibly dispersed the crowd from the highway to partially restore movement, but the incident left a trail of frustrated commuters and stark political fallout.

Know sequence of events in Nasrapur village

The tragedy unfolded in the sparsely populated Nasrapur village, where the girl’s grandparents first noticed her missing around 3 pm after she had been playing outside. When repeated searches failed, they informed local residents and filed a formal complaint at the Rajgadh police station in Bhor taluka. Villagers then turned to CCTV footage, which reportedly showed the 65‑year‑old taking the child into a cow shed. Enraged locals tracked him down and beat him up by a riverside before the police could intervene.

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Police, reviewing the same footage, later entered the shed and found the girl dead with her head smashed and her body partially covered in cow dung. Superintendent of Police Sandeep Singh Gill of Pune Rural Police told media that, according to the man’s confession, he ‘lured the child into the cattle shed on the pretext of showing her a calf, where he sexually assaulted and killed her.’ The police suspect that, after assaulting her, he hit her face with a stone and concealed the body under a heap of cow dung in an attempt to hide the crime.

Case charges and previous history of accused

The Rajgadh Police have registered a multi‑pronged case under several sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including 137(2), 103, 64, 74, 140(a), and 140(c), as well as under sections 4, 6, 8, and 12 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. A Pune sessions court subsequently remanded the accused to police custody until May 7, underscoring the seriousness with which the judiciary is treating the case.

Gill also revealed that the accused has a prior record of similar offences, with molestation cases registered against him under the POCSO Act in 1998 and 2015, and that he was acquitted in one such case in 2019. He described the man as “an elderly man with a similar pattern of behaviour” and noted that the victim, from Pune city, had come to visit her grandmother in Nasrapur for summer vacation. The sparse population of the village has raised questions about how easily the accused was able to lure the child while she was playing, and the police are now investigating that angle as part of the broader probe.

The incident has triggered sharp political reactions, with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis vowing to seek the death penalty. “I will demand capital punishment for the 65‑year‑old in court,” Fadnavis stated, reflecting the public anger and the state government’s bid to project a tough stance on crimes against children.

Deputy Chief Minister and Pune’s guardian minister Sunetra Pawar met the girl’s family on Saturday and assured them of stringent action and a fast‑track trial. Deputy CM and Shiv Sena supremo Eknath Shinde directed Pune Rural police to gather “concrete evidence” and build a watertight case, saying efforts should be made to ensure the accused receives the death penalty.

From the opposition, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut launched a scathing attack on the government, saying, “A 4‑year‑old girl was raped in this state. Criminals should fear the law. This government is responsible for this. The government is busy with VIP security and spends a month each touring Tamil Nadu, Keralam, Assam and Bengal. Who will look after things here? Perhaps the mother of the child who was raped and murdered could be this government’s own ‘Ladli Behna’. Can you buy that mother’s emotions for Rs 1,500? The real accused is this government, which is useless and incompetent. What is the police doing there? What is happening in this country? The Constitution is being violated. And you are lathi‑charging the public who came out carrying that child’s dead body.”

Shortly after midnight, the girl’s last rites were performed at Pune’s Vaikunth crematorium under tight police security, bringing a sombre close to a day that began with grief and ended with debates over justice, policing and public anger.