The 10-year-old girl who was rescued from a madrasa in Sahibabad on Sunday, in her statement before a magistrate said that the accused juvenile and the maulvi at the madrassa had sexually assaulted her.

The girl said that on April 21 she had stepped out of her house to go to a shop when another girl, a neighbour, called her over to meet a friend. This is when she met the accused juvenile who took her to the madrasa.

There, the 17-year-old accused and the maulvi at the madrassa would lock her in a room after sexually assaulting her. Her cries for help went unheard as classes would be held in the adjacent room. During her captivity, the survivor said that a few other people had also touched her inappropriately. Efforts are on to identify them as well.

The girl family hails from UP’s Rae-bareli district and had been living in Ghaziabad’s Sahibabad area for the last five years, before they recently shifted to Mayur Vihar in New Delhi. Both mother and father work in private companies, and they were out at work on 21st as well. When they returned, they did not find the child at home and got a police case registered for kidnapping.

The police then scanned the CCTV footage in which the accused was seen taking the victim in an autorickshaw. During investigation, he was traced to the madrasa and the girl was found there. Cops found the survivor lying wrapped in a floor mat on the first floor of the madrassa during the rescue operation on Sunday.

The room in which she was locked up was used by the maulvi to rest between classes. The house belongs to the local mosque committee that had appointed the maulvi last year to teach children. Police are probing whether he was involved in kidnapping other children as well.

Police have invoked Section 4 of POCSO Act (i.e. punishment for penetrative sexual assault) in the FIR following the girl’s statement. The maulvi at the madrassa, who was detained for questioning on Wednesday, may get arrested.

While scanning through the call records of the juvenile, it was found that he had been in touch with the survivor throughout the day on which she went missing. Crime Branch is also checking the call records to ascertain whether he had called others to sexually assault the survivor.

The juvenile told police during counselling that he was a student of the madrassa and had met the girl when her family used to stay in Sahibabad, before they shifted to Mayur Vihar. He had decided to lure her after that.

The survivor’s uncle said that a second medical examination was conducted on her after they alleged gang rape and she was sent to a children’s home for counselling on Wednesday. “We have been demanding the arrest of others who visited the madrassa. Our child is in a state of shock and has not been able to narrate her ordeal to us properly,” said a relative.

A raid by Crime Branch was on at the madrassa till late on Wednesday. As per Sahibabad police, local people, including relatives of the maulvi, had gathered to protest the police raid on Sunday.

Various Hindu organizations protested to demand justice for the girl and her family – NH-9 was blocked for 4 hours on Wednesday by the protesters.

This gruesome case comes on the heels of another disturbing incident in Feb wherein a 70-year-old maulvi raped a 9-year-old girl student inside a madrasa in Delhi’s Narela.

Note: TOI has reported the girl’s age as 11, while The Hindu and Jagran have reported it as 10.

Reference

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/lured-to-gzb-survivor-says-she-was-raped-by-juvenile-and-maulvi/articleshow/63917135.cms

https://www.jagran.com/uttar-pradesh/ghaziabad-kidnapped-girl-from-delhis-mathraseya-17866463.html

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/madrasa-rape-case-crime-branch-to-take-over-probe/article23663404.ece

https://www.jagran.com/delhi/new-delhi-city-rape-in-madarsa-17875555.html

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