In connection with the kidnapping and gang rape of a 15-year-old Hindu SC (Scheduled Caste) girl from the Kasna area of Noida, UP Police detained two men, Shoaib Badshah and Waseem, on Sunday night. On Monday, they also detained a juvenile aged around 15 in connection with the case.
On December 17, police were notified of a complaint that the minor girl had been imprisoned in a room, gang-raped, and assaulted by the accused.
According to the police, on Saturday the girl went to see one of the accused at his rented home close to her house. The two others, also known to her, were also present in the house. All three accused suddenly locked the room from the inside, and proceeded to assault and rape her.
Later, the child was able to return home, where she told her family about her ordeal and they went to the police.
According to Santosh Kumar Shukla, station house officer of Kasna police station, police then filed a FIR against the accused, Kasna residents Shoaib Badshah (22) and Waseem (21), under IPC sections 376D (gang rape), 363 (punishment for kidnapping), 342 (wrongful confinement), 323 (voluntarily causing harm), and 34 (acts done by several people in furtherance of common intention). In addition to the POCSO Act, the SHO stated that the FIR also contains parts of the SC/ST Act.
As mentioned in Times of India, “We arrested them from near the EPIP company site in Kasna and later apprehended the juvenile. We produced the duo before the court and sent them to judicial custody. We produced the 15-year-old before the Child Welfare Committee(CWC) and sent him to the correction home,” Shukla said.
According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau issued on August 29, there were 1.5 lakh crimes against children in the nation in 2017. Police reported 53,874 of these cases, or one-third of them, under the POCSO Act. Based on the recurring pattern seen across the country, it is seen that a disproportionate number of such crimes are done by radicalized members of a ‘minority’ community against children belonging to the ‘majority’.
