PATNA: Yet another gang-rape of a minor girl came to light in Bihar on Sunday even as leaders of the state’s ruling JD(U) and the Opposition RJD continued squabbling over a rise in incidents of crime against women.
All the four men who allegedly gang-raped the 14-year-old girl at an abandoned building in Ahiyapur village under Sarmera police station in Nalanda district late on Saturday evening were arrested, said SP Sudhir Kumar Porika. Nalanda is the home district of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
“While the victim said the four accused made a video of the incident, there is no evidence of it so far. They took some photographs of the incident with their mobile phones,” said a police official.
The victim had left her home allegedly after a bout of quarrel with her mother in the evening and was heading for an aunt’s house. When she was waiting for a bus at the bus-stand, two men she knew earlier – Vikas Kumar and Arvind Kumar Chaudhary – saw her there and offered to take her to her aunt’s house on a bike. She agreed and accompanied them, but they took her instead to an abandoned building in Ahiyapur village.
According to the FIR, two friends of Vikas and Arvind – Dadan Yadav and Bablu Kumar – had reached the building. The four men took turns to rape the girl and then let her go with a warning that she would face dire consequences if she revealed the incident to anyone.
The victim returned home and narrated her ordeal to her mother, who lodged an FIR at Sarmera police station on Sunday morning. A police team led by the SP and DSP Nishant Priya then conducted raids and arrested all the four accused. The victim was also examined at the Sadar Hospital, which confirmed rape. The SP said this case would be sent for trial in a fast-track court.
On June 13 night, a group of armed men had gang-raped a doctor’s wife and his 15-year-old daughter on an agricultural field after tying him to a tree in Gaya district. Four of the 15 culprits have been arrested so far.
According to data available with Bihar police headquarters, 289 rape cases have been registered in the state up to March this year. Data available for the previous five years shows that 1,198 rape incidents were reported in the state in 2017, the highest in this period.