8 men raped minor for months

In yet another horrific incident of sexual crime against women, a minor girl was repeatedly gang-raped and forced into having unnatural sex by eight men, including a 17-year-old, over a period of more than eight months in Bhayandar.

While five men including the juvenile have landed into the custody of the Navghar police for allegedly raping the 17-year-old girl several times, their three accomplices are still absconding.

The girl, in her complaint, had named seven out of the eight accused who used to threaten her and take turns to rape her. According to the police, the girl is a standard VI dropout who stayed with her parents and younger siblings in Bhayandar (east). She was familiar with two of the accused who under the pretext of some work took her to a deserted place and raped her eight months ago. However, her ordeal did not end there as her tormentors and their six other friends started taking turns to rape the minor on multiple occasions at different isolated locations in and around the residential locality.

Only when her menstrual periods stopped this month, her mother took her to hospital on April 6, where it was learnt that the girl was 10 weeks pregnant. This is when the girl narrated the incident to her parents following which a complaint was registered at the local police station late on Thursday night. The police immediately swung into action and arrested the five accused along with the juvenile.

“A case under Sections 376 (2) (n), 376 (d), 377, 504, 506 and Sections 4 and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act has been registered against the accused. We are ascertaining if the accused who did odd jobs for a living had been blackmailing the girl,” said Senior Police Inspector Srikant Padhule.