Scourge of child rapes continues

THE sexual assault and murders of children and teenage girls in India is spiralling out of control.

At the weekend, a man was arrested on a charge of raping a 7-yearold girl in Soro area in Odisha’s Balasore district.

Mahendra Malik, of Purusottampur, was arrested after he allegedly raped the girl during a wedding in the village on May 11.

The girl told her mother, and a police complaint was lodged.

Last week, a girl was gang raped and burnt alive in Khurai in Madhya Pradesh by her relative and his friend, after which one person was arrested.

The Additional Superintendent of Police, Vikramjit Singh, said the victim was sexually assaulted by her cousin Bharat and his friend Ravinder in Jujharpur village in Bandri police station area when she was alone in her house on Thursday night. She was burnt alive after she resisted.

He said Ravinder had been arrested, while Bharat is missing. The accused were booked under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Indian Penal Code.

Home Minister Bhupender Singh, in whose Assembly segment the village falls, met the bereaved family and offered them financial aid.

In another incident, a young girl was sexually assaulted at the Candolim beach in North Goa district, after which a 24-year-old native of West Bengal was arrested on Friday.

Riyaul Sayed has been booked under Sections 354A (sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code, Section 12 (sexual assault on minor) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and Section 8 (child abuse) of Goa Children’s Act. North Goa district police said Sayed had sexually assaulted the girl while she had gone to swim in the sea on Thursday. “We arrested him on Friday. The suspect was apprehended in Candolim beach village,” the spokesperson said.

According to a report, nearly 35 000 rape cases were reported to the police and 7 000 convictions were made in 2015, both increasing by about 40% from three years earlier, according to government data. – IANS