Amritsar, July 11: Police have arrested a 55-year-old man for allegedly raping his 13-year-old daughter for over six months in Batala subdivision of Gurdaspur district.
The matter came to light when the girl , a Class 6 student, got pregnant. Their neighbours noticed it and informed the Gurdaspur child development and protection officer (CDPO) who sent a team to the village and found the girl to be five-month pregnant.
The accused is a labourer in a cold store.
She was taken to the civil hospital for examination but it was not conducted due to unavailability of a female doctor.
The victim said she lived with her elder brother and father as her mother had left a few years ago and her elder sister got married last year. She said her father raped her for the first time in February when she was alone at house as her elder brother was out of town.
“When I tried to call for help, he threatened me with dire consequences. He continued molesting me for five months. When I got pregnant, he took me to a private nursing home at Qadian where the nurse agreed to abort the foetus. Since she demanded a huge sum of money, he could not afford to pay. Then he took me to another nurse who asked him to bring my mother and we had to reurn even from there. Though our neighbours tried to ask me about the bump in my belly I didn’t tell them anything out of fear,” she said.
Senior medical officer (SMO) Dr Sanjeev Bhalla said, “We have formed a board of women doctors to conduct her medical on Wednesday.”
Sekhwan station house officer (SHO) Rupinder Singh said a case has been registered under Section 376 (punishment for rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 3/4/5/6/7/8/9 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offence (POCSO) Act against the accused on the complaint of Rajni Bala, an employee with the child development and protection office.
Source Times of India
