Man held for raping daughters after 14-yr-old reveals horror to principal

CLASS8 STUDENT SAYS SHE HAS BEEN ABUSED FOR YEARS, DECIDED TO SPEAK UP AFTER THE FATHER STARTED ABUSING HER 10YROLD SISTER AS WELL

LUDHIANA:THE 14-year-old girl had suffered sexual assault for years at the hands of her father, but when he started assaulting her younger sister, 10, too, she decided to speak up on Tuesday. As the Class-8 girl narrated her horror to the principal at a government school in the city, police arrested the father, a factory worker, and sent the two girls to a welfare shelter. The girl had requested that her mother not be called as she feared the mother, also a factory worker “who knew about the sexual abuse”, would be angry with her.

The matter reached the legal authorities after the principal contacted the local Child Line director, Kuldeep Singh Mann, and also the police. Mann and his team members Balraj Singh Grewal, Ramanjit Kaur and Sukhvir Singh Sekhon got there around 3 pm, two hours after the girl first confided in a teacher.

“When interacting with our team member Ramanjit Kaur, the girl started crying and said she was being sexually abused by the father for past four to five years. She said that when the father started sexually abusing the younger daughter too in the past week, she could no longer stand it, and decided to speak up,” Mann told HT. “She said her father had already spoiled her life, and now she wanted to save the life of her younger sister,” Mann said. “She said she had told her mother, but the father ‘influenced’ her. When we talked to her mother, she said a father could not have done this.” ‘DON’T TELL MOTHER, SHE’LL BE ANGRY’

The school principal said, “She was very confident and narrated the whole incident to me around 1 pm. When I asked her if I should call her mother, she said the mother was already aware of the abuse, and will beat her up if she came to know that she had approached the authorities. I discussed the matter with the staff and contacted the Child Line.”

“We keep counselling students regarding good and bad touch, and have a suggestion box in the school. This is a shocking case,” she added.

The principal submitted a written complaint to local police post in-charge, assistant sub-inspector Harbajan Singh, who also visited the school to investigate the matter and to get details from the girls’ home in a nearby town. The family is originally from Nepal, its is learnt.

The ASI confirmed later, “We have arrested the father and a case against him has been registered under section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code, and under sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.”

(Some details have been withheld to protect the girls’ identity.)