Nandyal (Andhra Pradesh):

Andhra Pradesh Police arrested two male relatives of one of the three minor boys who allegedly gang-raped a nine-year-old girl here and dumped her body in a canal, said an official on Tuesday.

On July 7, the boys allegedly raped the girl and then pushed her into the Mucchumarri Lift Irrigation Canal in Mucchumarri village. She was last seen playing at a park in the village.

Newly appointed Nandyal superintendent of police Adhiraj Singh Rana said the father and uncle of one of the boys were arrested for concealing and destroying evidence.

“We arrested the two men on Monday and produced them in a local court which sent them on remand,” Mr Rana told PTI, adding that the boys were also produced in a juvenile court.

Police said the hearings are going on in the juvenile court and the boys could be sent to an observation home later.

According to police, after raping the girl, the boys allegedly strangled her to death and carted her body on a bicycle for some distance and then on a motorcycle to the backwaters of Krishna river with the help of the two men. Later, they tied a stone to her body and dumped it in the canal, police said.

On Tuesday morning, police reconstructed the crime scene and also zeroed-in on a particular search area to find the body.

Six police teams, expert swimmers, dog squads, drone cameras, technical teams, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams are searching for the body. 

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