‘6-year-old girl, mother both were gang-raped’

HARIDWAR: The mother of the six-year-old girl, who was gangraped by unidentified persons in a moving car in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district, was also raped in the vehicle, police said on Sunday.

Superintendent of Police (Rural) Pramendra Dobhal said that the medical report of the mother and the girl confirmed rape, and four police teams have been formed to nab the accused.

“Our hunt is on to nab the culprits. CCTV visuals are being scrutinised, and vehicular checking at checkpoints is being done,” he said.

According to the police, the incident took place on Friday night when the minor girl and her mother were heading to Roorkee from Kaliyar in a rickshaw. They later took a lift from a known person who was accompanying others in a car on the Kaliyar-Roorkee road, a senior police officer said.

“The accused gang-raped the mother-daughter duo before leaving them in a secluded place near the Ganga Canal stretch and fled in the car,” an officer said, requesting anonymity.

The incident took place around 10.30 pm, and the police were alerted an hour later. The woman earns a livelihood by begging and lives in a shelter home, another police officer said, also wishing not to be named. Based on a complaint from the girl’s mother, a case under section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act was lodged at the Civil Lines police station.

The girl’s mother is in a state of shock and could not reveal the number of accused involved in the offence, said Yogender Singh Rawat, SSP, Haridwar.