An eight-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a youth who abducted her from the premise of her house, where she was sleeping on a cot, in outer Delhi’s Kirari, police said on Tuesday.
According to police, the incident took place on the wee hours of Saturday when the accused, who is suspected to be a minor and is a stranger to the girl’s family, allegedly gagged the girl and took her to a secluded spot near her house where he forced himself upon her. “The accused was arrested and his age is being verified,” DCP (Outer) Vikramjit Singh said.
The girl was sleeping on a cot outside her house at an unauthorised colony in Kirari when the accused spotted her. After the sexual assault, the accused fled the spot leaving the girl there in a nearly unconscious state. In the early morning hours, the girl returned home on her own and slept on the same cot without anyone noticing her absence.
It was her mother who raised an alarm after she saw blood stains on the bed sheet and rushed the girl to a hospital. The hospital authorities called up police and a team was rushed there. The doctors confirmed sexual assault, following which the girl was sent for counselling.
During counselling, the girl broke down and narrated her ordeal. A case under IPC Sections 363 (abduction) and 376 (rape) and relevant sections of Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was registered immediately at Aman Vihar police station, a senior police official said.
CCTV footage from several premises in the locality were scanned by police and in one particular clip, the accused could be seen taking away the girl. He was identified within 24 hours and police started looking for him.
The accused is a stranger to the family and he lives in another lane in the same locality, said police, adding he was passing by when he spotted the girl sleeping at the cot and took advantage of the situation. He was not drunk at the time of the incident, police said.
The girl’s condition is stable now. Her father works as a supervisor in a private enterprise and her mother is a housewife.