Indian police officer arrested for raping gang-rape survivor
New Delhi, May 4 (EFE).- Indian authorities on Wednesday arrested a police officer who allegedly raped a 13-year old when she had come to the police station to complain about being sexually assaulted by a group of men a few days earlier.
The alleged rape took place in the northern city of Lalitpur last week, after the girl reached the police station to lodge a complaint alleging that on Apr. 22, she had been raped by four men, district police superintendent Nikhil Pathak said in a video shared on Twitter.
Hours after filing the complaint, when the minor returned to the police station, “the station house officer also raped her” as per the complaint, Pathak said, adding that “the SHO has been suspended with immediate effect, he is an accused and teams have been formed to arrest him.”
Later in the day, local media outlets reported that the accused officer had been arrested, while five others have also been arrested in relation to the earlier complaint.
Pathak said that a woman had already complained about the minor being kidnapped by four men, who allegedly took her to another city and sexually assaulted her for four days.
The accused dropped her back to Lalitpur on Apr. 26, where she complained of her ordeal to the police, only to be raped again by the SHO a day later.
Local media outlets have reported that the rest of the police officers present in the police station while the alleged rape took place have been relieved of their duties for now.
As per data collected by the National Crime Records Bureau, in 2020, 28,153 rapes were reported in India, amounting to nearly 80 rapes every day.
The country witnessed unprecedented protests over violence against women in late 2012, after a young university student was brutally raped and murdered onboard a moving bus in New Delhi.
The case marked a turning point for the country and led to laws against sexual violence being hardened, and subsequently the death penalty was slapped and carried out against some of the culprits, although some critics have insisted that the measures are insufficient and do not address the real issues. EFE
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