A six-year-old girl was allegedly raped, strangulated and shoved into a school campus presuming her to be dead at Jagannathpur village under the Salepur police station of Cuttack district, 30 km from here, on Saturday evening, police said on Sunday.
“A 25-year-old youth, Md Mustaq, of the same village was arrested on Sunday morning in this connection,” informed Salepur Sub-Divisional Police Officer PK Jena, adding that the girl in critical condition was shifted to Cuttack for treatment.
Health Minister Pratap Jena visited the hospital and told reporters that a team of at least 13 doctors drawn from several departments are attending to the victim.
“The State Government will bear the entire cost of the treatment and the minor girl is now under the special care of medicine specialists, pediatricians, psychiatrists, surgeons and radiologists in the ICU of trauma pediatric unit of the hospital,” the Minister said.
Doctors attending to the victim maintain that the condition of the girl was “very critical” as she has received deep injuries in her head, face, neck and chest.
There have been injuries in her groin with inflammation in her private parts, the doctors said,
Police said the girl, had gone to a kiosk in her village to purchase biscuits on Saturday evening. When she did not return after a while and there was power cut at that point of time, anxious family members along with villagers set out to look for her.
“After frantic search for over an hour, the girl was traced lying naked and unconscious in the school campus with blood oozing out from her head and mouth,” police said. She was rushed to a nearby private nursing home, from where she was shifted to Cuttack.
On the basis of a complaint filed by one Masood Ahmed, identifying him as the victim’s grandfather, a case under Sections 376 (2)(m) (i) and 307 of IPC and Section 6 of Pocso Act was registered and the investigations started immediately, informed Salepur Police Inspector DK Mallick.
With the Salepur incident, as many as six such incidences of assault on minor girls have been reported in Cuttack and Kendrapada districts during the last three days.
In the Marshagahi area, a four-year-old girl was raped by a youth on Saturday night.