Trigger warning: the following article has references to rape. Please avoid reading if you feel distressed by the subject
By all accounts, Nithya (name changed to protect identity), 9, was a cheerful child. She studied at a primary school in Puducherry, a coastal city in the Union Territory of the same name, bordering Tamil Nadu in the south. Her father says she enjoyed playing sports and the freedom of walking or cycling along the narrow lanes of her neighbourhood, located at one end of Beach Road, where houses are densely packed together. She would buy biscuits or sweets from small shops. Like many children her age, she was curious.
On March 2, Nithya went out to play. She should have been gone only a short while, but she did not return. Her sister, 11, was the last to see her. Her parents filed a missing complaint.
