In yet another horrific incident an 8-year-old minor girl was brutally raped by her neighbour in Barabanki district falling under Tikait Nagar police jurisdiction, Uttar Pradesh. The minor was taken to Zila Mahila hospital and is said to be in a critical condition. Police have arrested 40-year-old Salim and booked him under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The family of the victim approached the police when the child after returning home in the evening narrated the ordeal to her parents. The family confirmed that the child was bleeding profusely when she reached home.
Her family confirmed that Salim was their neighbour and had approached a few neighbouring families on the pretext of taking their children for a day out. The victim’s family had initially refused but Salim insisted and assured them that the children would remain safe. However, Salim took the victim to a garden where he mercilessly raped her and fled thereafter.
The family got suspicious after the child did not return home with the other children. She later came back and narrated her ordeal after which the family caught Salim and handed him over to the police.
Meanwhile, inspector Durgesh Mishra confirmed that the accused has been arrested and a case under the POCSO Act has been registered. The police took the child to a health centre in Tikait Nagar from where she was later referred to the District Women Hospital in Barabanki.
Rapes and assaults on minors have become rampant in recent times. Several such cases have been reported in the past. In April we had reported how Mumbai Police had reportedly not only declined to mention Akhtar Sheikh’s name in the FIR but also ignored invoking the crucial POCSO. Akhtar Sheikh was accused of raping a minor girl in Ghatkopar, Mumbai.
Swarjya an online news portal had then identified two more such biased cases, one from New Delhi and one from Uttar Pradesh — where minor girls were kidnapped in a similar way but the police, in both cases, refused to add the accused’s name and POCSO ACT in the FIRs.
Similarly, in March 2019, a 17-year-old minor Dalit girl was allegedly gang-raped by five men in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district. The accused had even reportedly filmed a video and threatened to make it public if the girl reported the matter to anyone. The five accused, Danish, Farid, Umama, Maj and Sabur were arrested by the police.
In yet another ghastly act, last year, a teenage girl in the intensive care unit (ICU) was allegedly gang-raped by a hospital worker and four other persons in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly city.