CHANDIGARH: A 16-year-old rape victim whose parents did not deem fit to avail medical help for her, died four days after the incident happened in the Jalalabad town of Fazilka district of Punjab.
Fazilka senior superintendent of police Patil Ketan Baliram said, “The police registered a case only on Sunday as the girl’s family hadn’t informed us about the incident earlier.
“They kept it under wrap fearing social stigma and initially did not take her to a hospital fearing the same. However, when they finally did, it was too late,” added Baliram.
The girl was unconscious for three days after the alleged assault and was only able to recount her ordeal to her parents on Sunday, the day she died.
She was a student of Class XI at a government school in Jalalabad. On October 25, when she was on her way back home from school, three bike-borne men purportedly abducted her near a petrol pump.
They took her to the nearby fields, allegedly raped her and then fled from the spot. When the girl did not return home on time, her parents started searching for her and found her bleeding and unconscious in the fields.
Sources said that the girl’s mother told the police that one of the accused was a classmate of her daughter. The police then registered a case of murder and gang-rape on the complaint of the girl’s father, who works in the grain market in Jalalabad.
The Fazilka SSP said, “We have registered a case under sections 376-D and 302 of IPC against one Major Ram and two other unidentified youngsters.”