Four-member Jalandhar admn team to visit two minor rape victims
› The victims will be provided free legal aid and health department will conduct their medical examination regularly. ,
JALANDHAR: Finally waking up from their deep slumber the district administration will send a team to help two minor rape victims. Both the victims are pregnant. A four-member team comprising a doctor, legal expert, counsellor and an official from district child development and programme will visit the victims on Tuesday.
District child development and programme officer (DCPO) Gurpreet Singh said, “The team will visit the families and prepare a detailed report about the incidents.” DCPO informed HT, “There is the provision of financial assistance of ₹3 lakh for the rape victims under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012.”
“The victims will be provided free legal aid,” DCPO Singh said.
Singh added that the victims can be brought in at the one-stop crisis centre at civil hospital where they can stay for three years maximum if the families agrees. The health department will regularly conduct medical examination of the victims. Singh said, the victims being on a high-risk pregnancy will be provided best health care.
Notably, nine rape cases involving minors have been registered this year by Jalandhar rural police.
DCPO claimed that the department is organising a state level function to sensitise the cops, on June 6, to deal with such cases.
THE CASE HISTORY
On April 27, a 14-year-old deaf and dumb rape victim was found fivemonth pregnant in Kang Sabu village.
On May 18, a 13-year-old mentally challenged girl, sexually assaulted by three persons on separate occasions, was also found five-month pregnant in Chak Kalan village of the district. Both villages fall in Nakodar subdivision. Cases under Section 376 (rape) and 3, 4 of the POCSO Act 2012 have been filed against the accused. As per the doctors, if the pregnancy is more than 20 weeks, it cannot be terminated and is considered risky for the patient.
HT visited Kang Sabu and met the victim who is in trauma after the incident. As per her father, she keeps lying in her bed most of the time.
Her 45-year-old distressed father said, ““I will be affectionate towards the newborn as he/ she is not at fault and will not terminate the pregnancy as it poses a risk to my daughter’s life.”