PATNA, May 25 -- A nine -year-old school girl was kidnapped, allegedly sexually assaulted, murdered and her body was dumped near a brick kiln to hide her identity at Saran's Bhatkeshri village, police said on Saturday. The incident occurred at a village under Jalalpur police station area on Saturday afternoon when the girl was returning home after attending her class. Alert villagers chased the accused and caught five people and mercilessly thrashed before handing them over the police. The villagers along with victim's family attacked the houses of accused involved in the incident. On getting information Saran SP Kumar Ashish and range DIG Nilesh Kumar reached the spot and pacified the mob. Out of the five people arrested three are juveniles. According to the police, the victim studied in class 5 of a government middle school. As she was about to reach her house (barely 500 metres from the school), five criminals kidnapped her, took her to bushes and sexually harassed her one by one. After committing the crime, they strangulated her to death and dumped her body in a nearby ditch. When they were trying to flee from the spot, some of the villagers said to be eyewitness of the incident raised an alarm and caught all of them. A panel of doctors at the Chhapra Sadar hospital, conducted the postmortem. The police registered an FIR against them under various provisions and sections of the BNS and POCSO Act after hundreds of villagers protested in front of the local police station and demanded capital punishment for the accused. "Additional police forces have been deployed at the village. FSL team arrived at the spot and collected samples. All the five accused have been arrested and police filed chargesheet against them shortly. They would face speedy trial," said the SP Kumar Ashish....