A 13-year-old visually challenged girl is in critical condition after she was allegedly raped and dumped in a forest by an unidentified man who had given her and her father a lift on his motorbike in Shahdol district, 592 km east of Bhopal, police said.
The crime was committed on Friday night but it came to light on Sunday. The girl was found by the guard of a paper mill in a jungle on Friday night after her father lodged a complaint with the police. She was rushed to the district hospital Rewa where her condition is stated to be critical, police said.
“The victim and her father were waiting for a public transport vehicle on Friday evening at Budhar railway station to go to their village which is about 10 kilometers away when a man on a bike offered a lift to them. The father refused but when he didn’t get any vehicle for about an hour or so, he agreed to the man’s offer,” Budhar police station in-charge Anil Patel said.
After some time, the accused allegedly asked the girl’s farther to dismount and rode away with the girl.
“On way to the village the accused stopped the bike on the highway and asked the girl’s father to get a bidi for him from a nearby shop. When the man went to buy a bidi, the accused took the girl to a nearby forest area and raped her before fleeing the spot. After failing to trace his daughter and the motorcyclist, the father called the police and we began a search for the girl. Later in the night, we got a call from a guard of a paper mill that a girl was lying in the forest in serious condition. A police team rushed to the jungle with the complainant who identified the girl as his daughter,” said Patel.
Patel said an FIR had been lodged against the unidentified man in connection with the rape and a manhunt had been launched to nab the accused.
Madhya Pradesh’s rape and molestation statistics are grim. According to the state women’s cell records, 1,894 rapes and 4,069 molestation cases were registered in the first five months of 2018 which translates to an average of 13 rapes and 27 instances of molestation every day.
In December 2017, MP became the first state in the country to pass a Bill providing for the rapists of girls aged 12 or below to be hanged till death. The minimum punishment, the Bill stated, would be a 14-year rigorous imprisonment or life term till death. This would go up to 20 years rigorous imprisonment in cases of gang rape of girls aged 12 or less.
Over the last seven months, fast track courts in Madhya Pradesh have pronounced 12 death sentences in rape cases.
First Published: Sep 24, 2018 10:11 IST
Source: HindustanTimes