A week after a 10-year-old girl in Rohtak was raped by her stepfather, a six-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her mother’s live-in partner in south Delhi’s Saket on Tuesday afternoon.
The accused (28) was arrested on Wednesday after the matter was brought to the notice of the Delhi Police and the Delhi Commission for Women.
According to the police, the accused raped the girl in an empty bungalow where he worked as a carpenter. He also allegedly hit her and threatened to kill her if she disclosed the incident to anyone.
A neighbour told The Hindu that he had seen the girl when she was going to the bungalow.
Story fabricated
“I met the girl on the street around 2 p.m. on Tuesday. I asked her where she was headed, and she said ‘Papa is taking me to his workplace’,” said the neighbour.
The next day, a youth who lives in the victim’s building saw blood stains on the girl’s dress when she was being bathed by her mother. Both the families share a washroom. “He also heard her complaining of pain in her abdomen and private parts. All this made me suspicious, and I went to check on the girl,” said the youth’s mother.
The girl, however, told the woman that she hurt herself after falling from the stairs.
“When she was telling me this, I saw the accused signalling at her to not open her mouth. When I asked the man what had happened, he said he didn’t know,” she said.
The neighbour then approached the girl’s mother, who told her to not put her nose into “an internal affair”. Unsure of what to do, the neighbour called on the women’s helpline and the police.
The police interrogated the victim, her mother, the accused and the neighbour. The girl initially stuck to her story of getting injured after falling down from the stairs, but opened up after sustained interrogation.
‘Accused was drunk’
The accused, too, confessed to his crime and said he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident.
“A case under sections 376 (rape), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC and under the POCSO Act has been registered against the accused,” said Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Chinmoy Biswal. The DCW said the girl had suffered injuries in her private parts and needed to be operated upon. She is currently admitted at AIIMS.
