A minor Dalit girl was gangraped in Lakhimpur Kheri of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.
As per the police report filed by the victim’s brother, his 15-year-old sister was on her way to the family’s second home in the village of Pipri (Mohamaddi town) at 9.30pm when she was dragged into a nearby sugarcane field and raped by five persons, identified as Nikhil, Jayram, Pushpendra, Vimal and Pawan. When his sister did not return home, the complainant’s mother and another sister set out in search for her. They reached the sugarcane field and the miscreants ran away upon sighting them.
She was rushed to Lucknow for treatment given the serious nature of her injuries, and has been admitted to King George's Medical University.
Her brother said, “The doctors have not told us how serious her injuries are, but she has been unconscious since last night”.
The FIR has been registered under Sections 376DA (gangrape) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 5g and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The last two cover crimes of aggravated penetrative sexual assault and sexual assault.
According to the residents of Pipri, the victim knew one of the accused and thus was lured into the fields easily. The four other accused were waiting for her there.
All those named in the FIR have been arrested.
As per data from the Crimes in India Report of 2021, there has been an increase of 15.3 per cent in crimes against women since 2020. Of these reported cases, rape accounts for 7.4 per cent cases.
In Uttar Pradesh, 2,845 rapes were committed in 2020. This puts the state behind only Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. In the same period, the crimes committed against Scheduled Castes stood at 3,739—the highest in the country. As far as sexual offences against children are concerned, the state accounted for 8.4 per cent of all such cases in the country.
The investigation officer in the case, Dheeraj Kumar Shukla, said there was police presence in the village to prevent any fallout of the case. “We are investigating all aspects and will file a charge sheet at the earliest,” he said.
