SI among four arrested for raping minor girl

Sivaganga (TN): Four persons, including a Sub-Inspector, were arrested today for allegedly gangraping a minor girl and were remanded to judicial custody.

The action follows a directive of the Madras High Court bench at Madurai on a petition filed by an advocate, seeking a CBI probe into the alleged rape of the 17-year-old girl by various persons, including 55-year-old police personnel.

The court had directed police to file an Action Taken Report.

Earlier, a 55-year-old dismissed Army personnel and his son had been arrested for the alleged offence.

The arrests came on a complaint by a relative of the girl to the Superintendent of Police Durai some days ago.

Later, they questioned the girl through members of the Child Welfare Committee and she had told them that many persons, including the SI, had raped her.

Cases were registered against all of them and the statement of the girl was recorded. She has now been lodged at a government home at Chennai, police said.

They said six persons had been arrested so far and a search was on to nab the others.

On Oct 5, the Tamil Nadu government had assured the bench that the Investigating Officer probing the case, in which the CBI probe had been sought against all police personnel allegedly involved, would appear before the court.

The Bench had recorded the submission and posted the matter for further hearing to November 3.

The advocate had referred to a police complaint of a woman from Coimbatore against ‘atrocities’ on her 17-year-old niece by various persons, including her father and brother, and said a cursory perusal of the FIR showed that police had not registered the complaint as preferred by the victim, “but tailored it suitable to their dubious intentions.”

The petitioner had alleged that police had forced the woman to file a complaint, charging only the father and brother with raping the girl and had left out all others.

He had also submitted that the girl had undergone forced abortion many times.

–PTI