11-yr-old gang-raped in Gwalior; mother, brothers held hostage

POLICE SAID THE THREE ACCUSED HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED AND AN FIR HAS BEEN REGISTERED AGAINST THEM

men allegedly gang-raped an 11-year-old girl after holding her mother and two brothers hostage at gunpoint in Gwalior, police said on Saturday, the second such incident in a month in the Madhya Pradesh district.

The alleged incident took place on Wednesday in the Bicholi area but was reported only on Friday, said Gwalior superintendent of police Dr Ashish.

Police said the three accused have been identified and an FIR has been registered against them. All the accused belong to the same village where the victim’s family lives in a shanty.

The officer said the family delayed informing the police as they wanted to settle the matter through the panchayat, but failed. “We are going to nab the culprits,” he added.

The family, however, denied any delay in filing the report and alleged the police initially doubted veracity of the incident.

On the night of the incident, the girls’s father had gone to work in Murar, a nearby town. Around 1am five armed men barged into their room and threatened the victim’s two brothers with pistols before taking the girl outside and raping her. “We cried throughout the night, out of fear and shame and sat huddled in our room. In the morning, we informed the Bicholi police,” the mother told the media,

She said she could not raise an alarm as the miscreants were armed and would have harmed her sons. “What could I do alone against five armed men?”

Soon, the police team and forensic rushed to scene. Initially, they allegedly tried to hush up the matter, she added. In an earlier incident, a 17-year- old girl was gang-raped in Mahelgaon area.