Barasat(WB)/Ahmedabad: A middle-aged woman was allegedly gang-raped and murdered in West Bengal while a minor girl in Gujarat was gang-raped which led her to attempt suicide, as a rash of rape cases were reported in the country on Sunday in which two village officials were among the arrested.
As the outrage over the death of the 23-year-old gang-rape victim in Delhi continued, there was a spurt in number of reported sexual assault cases in Punjab with many alleged victims coming forward with their complaints.
A man and his son were arrested for allegedly raping his teenaged daughter in Dombivili township of Thane district in Maharashtra while a 15-year-old dalit girl was allegedly raped and held captive for 15 days by three men in Dharauli village in Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
The two village officials were arrested in connection with two rape incidents in Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh.
In the incident at Jagannathpur in West Bengal’s North 24-Parganas district, Police said the woman’s son, Alafaz Ali, had filed an FIR last night at Barasat police station stating that his mother was gang-raped and murdered and his father was poisoned and seriously injured.
Additional Superintendent of Police Bhaskar Mukherjee said the body of the 45-year old woman was found near a brick kiln last evening bearing sharp wounds on the head.
The incident occured when the woman went to look for her husband, a brick-kiln worker last evening. Six persons allegedly assaulted her, Mukherjee said.
Meanwhile, her husband returned home and went to look for his wife when he heard her cry for help and was in turn assaulted and forcibly made to consume some poisonous substance, he said.
The victim and her husband were rushed to Barasat State General hospital where the woman died
Police arrested one person and detained eight others for interrogation.
In Gujarat, a minor gang-rape victim allegedly attempted suicide by consuming poison at her residence on Sunday, police said. The 14-year-old girl’s condition is critical and she has been put on ventilator, they said. Police said the minor was kidnapped in a car from Dholka town in Ahmedabad district and raped by two persons on December 6, following which her family members registered FIR on December 14.
“The girl had been complaining to her father of acute stomach pain for the past two days. Unable to bear it any longer, she mixed pesticide with water and drank it early morning on Sunday.
She was immediately taken to a private hospital in the village before being brought to V S Hospital in city,” Dholka police inspector B D Thakkar told reporters. He said the girl has been put on ventilator and kept in the Trauma Centre. “Her condition is critical because she is physically very weak,” Thakkar said.
A Village Revenue Officer (VRO) of Nandivada in Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh has been arrested for allegedly raping his colleague, police said.
B Pandu was arrested after a rape case was registered against him last evening, it said. The victim had joined his office as his assistant around four months back, it added. According to police, Pandu once offered her a spiked soft drink, following which she fell unconscious. He then took her objectionable pictures and black-mailed her to have physical relationship with him.
At least five persons were arrested for allegedly raping a tribal woman in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district, police said.
“Five people have been booked under section 376(g) (gang rape) by Pakhanjur police station yesterday,” Superintendent of Police Rahul Bhagat told PTI. The accused include a village sarpanch. According to the woman, she was raped by the accused at Alor village (over 250 km from Raipur) on December 23.
Two days later she went to the government hospital in Pakhanjur where the doctors informed the police that a woman, brutally assaulted, had been admitted.
However, the SP said, the medical report of the government hospital was silent on rape. Next day, the victim herself went to a private hospital, where she told the doctors about the rape.
Meanwhile, a police constable was arrested for trying to abduct a teenaged girl at Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh even as a hunt was launched to nab a person who allegedly tried to have sex with a minor girl in Prakasam district, police said on Sunday. Constable O Prabhakar allegedly attempted to kidnap a 17-year-old girl by trying to pull her inside his car while she was returning home last night in Nalgonda, police said.
In a separate incident, 40-year-old Sheikh Mabub allegedly attempted to have unnatural sex with a 6-year-old girl by luring her to his room by giving her chocolate in Markapur town of Prakasam district on Saturday, police said.
Locals, however, noticed the incident and thwarted his attempt even as he fled from the place, police said.
In Punjab, as many as four rape cases, including one against a police head constable, weere reported in Amritsar and Bathinda districts in the last two days. A 20-year-old girl in Amritsar’s Ajnala town lodged a complaint on Saturday against a Punjab police head constable, his wife and nephew, alleging that she was sexually assaulted in October on the pretext of giving her a job in the police department, police said. Search is on to nab Kulwinder Singh, his wife Ranjit Kaur and nephew Gurcharan Singh, Amritsar (Rural) SSP Preetpal Singh Virk said. (PTI)