Girl out to watch baraat, abducted & raped; two held
GHAZIABAD: Two persons were arrested on Thursday for allegedly raping a 10-year-old girl on December 10 evening, when the minor had gone to the Rashi Ali Gate area in Loni to watch a wedding procession with two friends.
The two accused, police said, offered to take the three girls home in their Echo car. They dropped two girls near their homes and then took the third to a forested, deserted spot and gangraped her.
The two men later dumped the girl at the same spot from where they had picked her up.
The child managed to reach home on her own but did not share anything with her family for the next two days. On December 12, the girl complained about abdominal pain and her family members took her to a hospital where a medical examination indicated sexual assault. The girl confided in her mother later and subsequently, a complaint was submitted to the local police station.
ACP Loni Suryabali Maurya said an FIR was lodged under IPC section 376D (gangrape) and relevant sections of the Pocso Act. “Two teams were formed to nab the accused. The minor had seen the house of one of the accused, whom we later identified as Papu alias Zakir (58). Today, a police team arrested him from a hotel in Loni. We also recovered the car, used during the crime, from his house,” he said.
The second accused Najim (32), a resident of Ankur Vihar, on interrogating Papu, police said. Najim was picked up by a police team from his house.
“A police team took Najim to the forest to retrace the events as it happened and collect evidence — clothes, etc — from the spot. The accused managed to snatch a pistol from a head constable and tried to escape. He also opened fire on the cops. During a cross-firing, he sustained a bullet wound on his leg. Later, police arrested him and sent him for treatment,” he said. Nizam purchased the Eeco car recently and was driving it at weddings and other functions, while Zakir is a rickshaw puller, police said.
As per the NCRB data, a total of 189 cases of crime against children were registered in Ghaziabad last year, of which 134 cases were registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act and 50 were related to kidnapping and abduction. In
