Police identified the arrested person as Firoz Noor Maqsood (20), originally a resident of Aligarh, who worked at a shop in Ghaziabad since the past one year. He lived near the girl’s house.

According to the police, the girl went missing from her home on February 5.

“Firoz has admitted to us that he lured the girl to his house by offering her Rs 30 and peanuts. He raped her at his house,” police said. However, on noticing the girl bleeding, he panicked and tried to take her to a hospital in Khurja,” a police officer said.

“Members of Firoz’s family had gone for a wedding on the day of the incident. When he was on the bus to Khurja, they called and asked him to return home as they required the keys to the house. Fearing he would be caught, Firoz returned to Ghaziabad with the child, who was unconscious at the time. He threw her on the railway tracks from a bridge near Chipwana, and left her to die, before returning home,” a police officer said.

The girl, however, survived the attempted murder and was found the next morning by passersby, who rushed her to the MMG Hospital. “Luckily, she fell in the space between two parallel railway tracks. She has sustained hip and head injuries, and is now out of danger,” an officer said.

Senior Superintendent of Police Raghubir Lal said, “It is a shocking case. Medical examination of the child is in progress. If the test confirms rape, a case will be filed against him under that particular section too.”