19-year-old gang-raped in Haryana, 3 accused on the run

Senior Medical Officer, Civil Hospital, Rewari, Sudersan Panwar, said the teenager was stable but depressed.

A 19-year-old girl, a high achiever in board exams, was abducted and allegedly gang-raped by three men belonging to her native village here. One of the accused is an army constable, said the family.

The incident took place on September 12 when the teenaged girl, a B.Sc (I) student at a government college, went to neighbouring Mahendergarh district with her father for a coaching class.

Recalling the incident, the girl's father, a Physical Training Instructor at a private school, said the trio was following them from their village in a car and two motorcycles and accosted the girl when she got down from the bus at Kinana bus stop around 8 a.m. “The accused inquired her about her coaching and then offered her a drink laced with sedatives. She passed out and the trio then took her to her native village and raped her at a tubewell in the fields,” said the father.

He alleged that one of the accused also called his friends who also raped the girl. “The girl identified the three men. There were around 7-8 more boys from the village involved in the crime,” he alleged.

One of the trio then took the victim back to the bus stand, where she was abducted, and called her family over phone to inform that she was not well. Her mother and brother then went to pick her up from the bus stand.

Besides being good at academics, the girl also played Kabbadi and Baseball at state level, the family claimed.

Accusing the police of laxity, the victim's family alleged that the Rewari Police took around 24 hours to transfer the Zero FIR registered by them to their Mahendergarh counterparts allowing the accused enough time to escape. The police, however, denied the allegations.

The father claimed that one of the accused even came to their house on Thursday morning and threatened him. The fellow villagers accompanying the victim's family alleged that the said accused was earlier involved in 4-5 rape cases in the village, but victims' belonged to poor families and did not report the matter.

Senior Medical Officer, Civil Hospital, Rewari, Sudersan Panwar, said the teenager was stable but depressed. He said that her medical condition would be reviewed late at night.

Mahendergarh Superintendent of Police, Vinod Kumar said that several teams were constituted to arrest the accused who were on the run.