Kanpur, June 12 -- After sexually assaulting a five-year-old girl and attempting to murder her in Kanpur's Ghatampur locality on Tuesday, the accused, a 21-year-old neighbour, allegedly returned home after the gory act, washed his clothes, took a bath, and then joined the victim's family in search of the child who had been missing from home, behaving as if nothing had happened, said police on Wednesday. The minor had gone to a nearby grocery store around 4pm when the accused allegedly lured her to a secluded spot on the pretext of offering her a chocolate. "The youth outraged her modesty, and when the girl screamed in pain, the assailant allegedly stuffed her mouth with leaves and soil. As she continued to cry and resist, he repeatedly hit her with a brick until she lost consciousness," said deputy commissioner of police (south) Deependra Nath Chaudhary. An FIR was lodged under relevant sections of the BNS and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act. The accused, who resides across a narrow lane from the victim's house in a sparsely populated locality, is said to have used his familiarity with the family to lure the girl away while she was playing outside her home on Tuesday evening. "When I was asking others about my daughter's whereabouts, he told me that she was lying behind the Syed Baba ki Mazar," the victim's mother recalled from the Lala Lajpat Rai Hospital, where the girl remains in the intensive care unit. Police said the accused led the family to the child's location near the mazar around 11pm and then rushed her to the hospital on his motorcycle. The CCTV footage shows him transporting the grievously injured child to the local community health centre. According to the police, the accused fled the locality soon after many women identified him as the last person seen with the child. "My daughter used to call him 'uncle'. He took her with him and then hit her with a brick on the face," said the distraught father, a local e-rickshaw repairman. "The manner in which he joined the search made it impossible to suspect him. He acted like one of us," he added. The area near the mazar, surrounded by dense trees, is largely deserted in the evenings. It was here, the police said, that the accused allegedly struck the child with a brick and attempted to suffocate her by stuffing leaves into her mouth. After committing the crime, he returned to his house, cleaned himself up, and actively joined the search. His familiarity with the family and the neighbourhood allowed him to deflect suspicion, until eyewitnesses placed him with the child just before her disappearance. Police officials said the accused was adopted by a tubewell operator and his wife, and had been a frequent visitor to the victim's house. The DCP confirmed that multiple teams have been deployed to track the accused, who remains at large. "We are closing in on him. His arrest is imminent," he said. Kanpur commissioner of police Akhil Kumar visited the hospital in the early hours of Wednesday and remained there until dawn. Given the critical condition of the victim, a green corridor was created to expedite her transfer to the LLR hospital....