This week, a young girl from Batswaneng in Khutsong outside Carletonville lost her life in a senseless crime.

According to the West Rand District SAPS’s communication officer, Warrant Officer Audrey Sefara, Khutsong police members were attending to a complaint around Batswaneng at about 20:15 on January 5.

A woman approached them and told them her eight-year-old granddaughter had gone missing. She said the child had asked permission to visit her father with a man the woman knew.

The woman said she refused, but later realised the child was missing.

The police officers, the grandmother and the patrollers went to the suspect’s house.

No one answered when they knocked on the door, but when a community member pushed it open, they found the girl naked on the couch, presumably raped. The emergency service personnel later declared her dead.

The police immediately established a task team to find the 18-year-old suspect and they soon found him and arrested him on charges of murder and rape.

He appeared in the Khutsong Magistrate’s Court on Monday, but the court outcome is not yet known.

The acting district commissioner, Brigadier Happy Xaba, condemned the brutal act committed against an innocent child and welcomed the members’ hard work and dedication in ensuring that the suspect was immediately apprehended and that justice prevailed.