Bengaluru police are on the lookout for a man who broke into an apartment in Bellandur and attempted to sexually assault a minor girl.

According to reports, the nine-year-old girl was asleep in her room in the early hours of Saturday morning at around 4.30 am, when the incident took place. The man had reportedly entered the house through a window and had ransacked her wardrobe before attempting to undress her.

The child’s screams alerted her parents and as they rushed into her room, the man reportedly jumped out of a washroom window and escaped.

The girl’s father has lodged a complaint with Bellandur police and a case has been filed under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO). Police are combing through CCTV footage for any clues and have launched a hunt for the accused. The security guard of the apartment has been questioned by the police.

“He came from a nearby forest area adjacent to the apartment. We are ruling out the involvement of the people living in the apartment premises,” one officer was quoted as saying by TNIE.

In October 2019, data released by the government’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) showed that there has been a steep rise in the number of crimes committed against children in the past few years in south India. Of the southern states, it was reported that Karnataka in particular has shown high numbers of crimes against children since the year 2015. With 1582 cases, Karnataka’s capital Bengaluru has reported the fourth highest number of crimes against children in the entire country.