Five youths arrested for ‘gang-raping’ dalit girl

LUCKNOW: Five youths were arrested on Friday for allegedly gang- raping a 17-year-old Dalit girl after kidnapping and holding her captive at different locations in the city for three days.

The victim alleged she was kidnapped and raped by her friend and four others when she sought help from him after fleeing from her house in a Bakshi Ka Talab village over some family issue last Monday.

The girl said her friend Kuldeep Gautam and his three friends – Jai Singh, Rajnish Gautam and Anil Rawat kidnapped her from IIM road when she called them to arrange for a place to stay after fleeing from her house.

The victim said the youths forcibly pulled her inside a car and raped her after taking her to an under-construction building on Kursi road.

She said she was held hostage there for over 24 hours and thereafter the youths dropped her at the house of their friend Ravi Sharma in Gudamba. The girl said she was held hostage at Ravi’s house and raped multiple times before she managed to escape from there on Thursday afternoon.

The girl narrated the entire trauma to her family members when she returned home on Thursday evening.

Her family told cops that they had lodged an FIR of her disappearance on Tuesday and were searching for her since then. They said they failed to trace her despite best efforts and came to know about the crime when she herself returned home.

ASP (rural area) Gaurav Grover said the police had arrested the accused after registering an FIR of gang-rape against them and sent the girl for medical examination.

He said charges of atrocities against Dalit and protection of children from sexual offences act were also slapped against the accused persons.

The cops would take along the girl to identify and examine the spot where she was allegedly raped. Police teams were working to collect concrete evidences against the accused and further probe was on in the case.